When a parent does not pay child support that they are court-ordered to pay, it can be extremely frustrating. The only method of bringing this to the Court’s attention is to file an Enforcement. Enforcement actions request the court to make the person do what they are ordered to do. With regard to child support, the court can confirm the amount of child support the person was supposed to pay, calculate interest on the arrearage, and enter a new income withholding order to start having the regular child support and the back child support withheld from the person’s paycheck. The court can even order that the attorney fees you incur as a result of having to file the enforcement action are paid back as though they were child support too. The amounts can be withheld from tax refunds as well.

While all of the above actions can be very effective for a person who is employed, they are not as helpful in situations where the person is not employed, self-employed, continually changing employment, or are chronic nonpayers. For particularly stubborn non-payers, it may be most effective to request that he or she be confined in jail for nonpayment. Jail time can be very effective in getting a parent to take their child support obligation seriously. It is surprising how many obligors think they have a right to just not pay child support. The Courts take enforcing their orders very seriously and they can, and do, confine people to jail when they do not pay child support.

While the Attorney General’s office pursues enforcement actions against people that do not pay, the Attorney General Office’s priority is to take care of the entire State of Texas first before handling individual citizen’s cases of nonpayment. This means that if your child is not receiving any benefits from the government it may take a long time for the Attorney General to get to your case. Sometimes this means years of not receiving child support payments.

Hiring an experienced child support attorney can get your case before the judge quickly and will show the nonpaying parent that the child support order will be enforced by the Courts. Sometimes, the obligor just needs to realize how serious the matter is before it becomes a priority to make the child support payments. To speak with an experienced child support attorney call for a consultation today.