Have you ever dealt with a friend who refused to pay child support?

Take it to court.
Honestly, it’s the only way to keep things cut and dry.
Have child support, visitation, and custody court ordered and just go from there. I wish that I could say that it keeps things simple, but that would be a lie. However, it gives you some leverage, which comes in handy.

Even easier than going to court – she only needs to contact local child support enforcement.
My friend used to work for the District Attorney’s office in the Child Support enforcement division.
They’ll have her prove that he’s the father (and if he fights it, he has to take a DNA test to prove he’s not the father) and then they’ll enforce child support based on a reasonable calculator.

She doesn’t even need to get an attorney first – she can get the ball rolling by contacting the Child Support Enforcement city offices in your town.

I guess we’re beyond the point where talking will help anything?

Honestly, the one person I know who didn’t pay his support is no longer a friend of mine. There aren’t many situations that I would put myself into, but taking care of one’s children is one area I can’t keep my mouth shut about. I was that single mom that wasn’t getting child support for years, so I have little tolerance for people not paying their child support. When he wasn’t paying his support, I told him exactly how I felt about it and what I thought about it. He wasn’t paying because he didn’t want his ex to have the money, not because he couldn’t afford it or anything like that.

If you want to continue being friends with him, it’s probably best not to say anything at all to him about it.

As far as what you can do for the mom, help her get in touch with child support enforcement. They will help her get a court order for child support and then help her with getting the money. Once an order is in place, if he continues not to pay, child support enforcement can get a judgement to attach his wages (if he’s working) and they can intercept his tax returns at the end of the year for back support.

Well, you know how blunt and cranky I am….. if I were “friends” with the guy who refused to pay, I’d probably call him out for being a total douchebag and tell him he’s a loser for not helping to support his child.

Then, I’d tell the lady friend to take his ass to court and get at least some monthly amount from him. When my parents split up when I was 13, my father had to pay $800 a month.

Oh, I simply garnish their wages lol…...What would a third party do who isn’t even involved? It’s up to the mother to take him to court. You could simply tell them “Hey, buddy, do the right thing.”, but I’m sure they already know this and would be paying if they could and or wanted to.

There’s some really good advice up there, @KatawaGrey , if she’s not eating properly she can’t take proper care of her kid (I know this young woman, she’s already thin as a rake) and as I recall he is gainfully employed and can contribute reasonably. Get on her to get on the stick with this, we don’t want to see her move back in with her Mom.

That person would very soon not be my friend. I would help the mother go to court to get the child support mandated.

@Nullo: The girl is starving herself to feed her child because this guy won’t pay child support. Yeah, I’d say we’re beyond talking.

I’m not entirely sure how to go about talking to this guy. Someone needs to and, quite frankly, this is one instance where I am not in favor of keeping my nose out of someone’s business.

No, I’ve dealt with an ex-husband who wouldn’t pay sometimes. I called his entire famiy and shamed him in front of them until his mom would pay the payments. If I had a friend that was doing this, they’d hear a mouthful from me about it.

Guido’s cousin Tony or a lawyer.

Support your friend, the mother, by encouraging her to go to the authorities. And by de-friending the deadbeat dad. What a loser.

Personally, I can’t be friends with people that don’t take personal responsibility seriously. If this were me and it has been in the past I’d encourage my girlfriend to take this as far as she needs to to shake him down for the money even if it involved a large male friend o’mine to do the shaking

Occasionally he’s the fill-in delivery guy for my neighborhood…and I’m watching for him…<evil grin>

Yes, I have some understanding with friends that have been in this situation.

Take it to court. Have it reviewed. I am not sure where in the world this is, but in the US it varies state to state. It is pretty cut and dry and based on a financial formula.

It is terrible that the father is non paying. How on earth a person can sleep knowing that they fathered a child and is being non-responsible. I will not go on a soapox, but there is no excuse for non payment!.

The Mother should do all she can to ensure that her child has this put into a court order.

If I knew someone who was in a non payment situation I would certainly ask him how he lives with himself?

I have an ex who doesn’t pay his child support. I am only owed a couple of thousand at the moment which is actually a good position given how much he has owed in the past. I would not be friends with someone who puts their ex partner in the position of having to borrow money to put a roof over the head of their children or friends with the parents of an ex partner who they supported their child’s actions.

As to the Child Support Agency, they can help if the person not paying is at least logical. My ex has changed jobs deliberately to avoid paying. I had had to get friends to follow him to find out where he worked. He now lives in a different state and despite having to fill in tax declaration forms the CSA and tax department apparently don’t talk (until it affects the tax department getting their tax). So, the CSA cannot find where he is working now because he again changed jobs. They actually rang me to find out where he works and when I told them (he wrote it on his FB page) they said, there is more than one branch so we need you to find out which branch. Rolling eyes… So, government agencies can help to a point.

Partners who play these games are scum. I say partners because women do it too. It isn’t just men. I am thankful I am, and have not been for a very long time, reliant on child support. I see such behaviour as abuse. Passive abuse but nontheless, abuse of children and former partners.

@Bellatrix My ex was the same way with avoiding child support. He would actually only work under the table so that they court’s couldn’t garnish his wages or intercept his tax returns (since he didn’t have any). The Child Support Enforcement group got to be annoying for me because they’d constantly file for the arrears that he owed and we would go to court (me and the CSE), but he’d never show. I ended up dropping the child support completely so I didn’t have to deal with it anymore after a while. I wasn’t getting the money either way and I was tired of being the one constantly showing up at court for nothing. :(

I hear you. Here, I haven’t been eligible for many years, but I don’t think you can get government benefits if you aren’t actively seeking child support. So, if people say, “I don’t want it” they can’t get any benefits. Means most people who really need their child support have to be on the CSA merry-go-round.

It is a horrible position to be in. I don’t think former partners should be screwed to the ground and left in a position of destitution but I do think if you have children you should pay a fair share towards their upkeep after a relationship breaks down. It is just the right thing to do for your children.

Thankfully, like you, I don’t need the CS any more so I can just forget about it. If they collect it great, if they don’t I am not going to let it stress me in the slightest. Sadly, many people with the responsibility for the care of children don’t have that luxury.

If in the US and he still refuses and its mandated by the court there is alot more recourse such as garnishment and possible jail time but until she does it there is nothing the court system can do. Encourage the mom to take it to court becuase ultimately its effecting the child and he should be held responsible.

(said in the stereotypical “Italian Mob” voice) Look, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. I could call in a favor…

Geez, @WillWorkForChocolate , I was just gonna call you!

I’d love to bitch slap the bastard, but I’m kinda busy nursing my daughter’s ear infection.

Poor sweetie, give her a kiss for me.

Will do!<3

@Bellatrix and @Seaofclouds – at least in my case with non-payment—the back child support owed to us meant a tax break. (And @Bellatrix, I thank you for pointing out it’s not just the proverbial “dead beat dad’s” at fault…because I am a custodial step-mom and in our case it was the non-custodial bio-mom who owed us money.)

You might want to look into whether the child support owed to you from the non-paying parent might be considered a “loss” in the eyes of the IRS (if you are in the US) and you might be able to get some tax money back to offset the unpaid child support.

There is a cap each year – (I think it was around $3,000 or $4,000 per year you could write-off) but the balance can carry over to the next year (and so on) until you’ve written off the entire loss.

No, here we can’t claim it as a tax deduction. I know though, along with tax owed to the government, child support is one debt you cannot escape here. It stays until you finally put in a tax return and get a refund and then that refund will go to the parent who is owed. People just avoid putting in their tax return. I mostly (99.9% of the time) just forget about it. It is one of those niggling little negatives in life that I can’t do anything about so I may as well not stress about. I don’t need the money (thank goodness!) so I have the luxury of just writing it off in my head at least.

Thanks for the information and advice @geeky_mama.

@Seaofclouds I just read your post way up there, haven’t read the others yet, but had to say I totally agree with you. So many men want to say “I’m not giving my ex money to spend on herself!” Do they not realize their paltry 150.00 a month will barely feed a child? That is only $5.00 a day. That covers rent, food, clothing, transportation, etc. But these dead beat dads want to pretend they think their ex is out living it up on the few dollars they are ordered to give up.
Rant over.

@JilltheTooth They sell some very reliable, very intimidating firearms for very little money these days. The M91/30 is about four feet long and ships with a bayonet. In case @Simone_De_Beauvoir‘s family shame tactic and legal action fall through.

<chuckles> @Nullo : I do “pretty intimidating” on my own, thanks. I’m taking the mom grocery shopping this week and I’ll talk to her about some of the stuff that has come up here in this thread. I’m hoping between @KatawaGrey,s input as her friend and mine as her sort-of mom we can help her out with info and support.

I hope you and @KatawaGrey can help her friend. It is sad that she is going without in such a way. I hope for better circumstances for her.

Thanks, @Bellatrix , she’s a sweetie and already has had a rough enough time with her growing up home life.

As some have listed, I would just like to point out that it is not always a “dead beat DAD” or always MEN who do this. Sadly many family court systems and judges still lean one way which creates a swing in who makes support payements.
Would you think differently of your answer if the roles were reversed?
It is about a parent not being responsible for their child first and foremost. The visitation and support order is put in place exactly for that. It is in the best interest of the child to get both support and visitation if possible.

@chyna $150 a month is no where near what the average support order is. It usually is about $250 per week, but again it is all based on a formulary that the courts put in place.

As an fyi, I am a single parent who has sole physical custody. The court order was set in place to have any weekly funds owed from her Mother be placed into a trust fund in my daughters name. (Sadly her Mother is in contempt of the order for non-payment). I established it this way for fairly obvious logical reasons.
rant over

@blueiiznh I agree, it’s not just dead beat dads, it’s dead beat PARENTS, sorry to have said it that way. I said $150.00 because it doesn’t really matter how much they are ordered to pay, they aren’t going to pay it. However, I do know a couple of women that are supposed to be receiving child support in the amount of $150.00 per month. Per the scale and the fact their ex’s don’t work or don’t claim to work, that is what they have been ordered to supply. And no one can live on that. Also, this is in WV where wages are low and jobs are few.

When I had a child support order against my ex-husband, it was for $115 a month. Since he purposefully didn’t have a legal job, he didn’t have any legal income to report and could get away with not reporting his work under the table since I couldn’t prove it. This was in Delaware and they determine child support based on a percentage of support. Basically they compare the two people’s income and determine which percent of support each would be paying based on their income. So, for example, if combined we made $100,000 but I made $80,000 of it and my ex only made $20,000 of it, they would say that he was only responsible for 20% of support for our child (instead of straight 50/50. It varies from state to state though, so it could be different for the OP’s friend.

The father is claiming that he’s not paying because he wants to have custody of the child exactly half the time. What this means is his parents would have custody half the time, since he usually just foists his kid off on them anyway when he’s got her. However, considering that my friend is working full time, lives on her own dad has a roommate and thus there would be no room for his kid when she visited, and the child is healthy, happy, well-fed, well-clothed, sheltered and generally in very good shape, it is sooooo unlikely that he would be awarded any kind of custody, aside from visitation rights. He’s the kind of non-custodial parent who would get angry because she was using the child support for things like putting gas in her car or paying bills in addition to actually buying food, clothing and diapers specifically for the child. It’s like he doesn’t understand that the meager $300 a month that he was paying before doesn’t pay for everything his daughter needs, so mom puts gas in her car to drive to her job to pay for everything else for their daughter and she pays the bills so that their kid has a place to live and can be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

This whole thing just sucks beyond all reason. This man also doesn’t understand some basic things about children. Once, when the child was younger and she was just learning how to walk, she fell down the stairs. She had a little cut on her forehead, and nothing else was wrong. And she never hurt herself like that again. He got so enraged that his ex would allow that and I had to explain to him that kids sometimes hurt themselves. That is the nature of being a child. If that’s grounds for taking a kid away, I wouldn’t know my grandparents since @JilltheTooth‘s favorite thing to do when she was younger was bleed spectacularly from her face. Seriously, this woman always fell on her face as a child and would fountain blood. My grandparents got so jaded about it after a while. :P

This whole situation is just shitty. It’s not just that dad is refusing to pay child support, but it also means that the relationship he has with his daughter and her mother is getting worse and worse which will harm this little girl more in the long run.