REMO-Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order

mrsspendalot wrote: »

I hope you replied 'you should have thought about that sooner'

Good luck!

I did say, think of it as incentive to get a job...;)

kimi31 wrote: »

Well NRP has phoned and let me know he has had his first letter ( from attorney general??) and to give me the guilt trip from hell. Wanted to let me know he would probably now lose his licence and car registration and how was he supposed to pay for representation at the court hearing...

So who do i need to contact now?? Customer services? Do i wait til hes served???

Hmmm long slog ahead.....

Kimi - just to be certain - as there are lots of PWC's with their stories on this thread now! Yours is the ex in Quesnel, BC Canada right? If he's received his first letter - it would be from the Attorney General in the UK - notifying him of a case being opened in the UK courts, and asking him to provide details to the UK court within a given time frame, and then I believe a court date will be set for you to appear here.
Don't let him guilt you out - he doesn't need representation in his court case there - for the one here, he simply needs to provide the details asked for. He will then get to attend a hearing in the Provincial court there, no legal representation is required, and as far as I am aware, there is still no charges for any family matter cases heard in the Provincial Court. Then when the order is finalised in the BC Provincial Court, it is up to YOU to register the order with the Family Maintenance Enforcement Program. They will confirm the document being registered is genuine (just so you know, they will require court certified copies of ALL orders made right from day one - so if there any prior ones, make sure you have copies of them certified by the court to send to them - otherwise they have to request them, and this can cause delays.

If you look at this link http://www.fmep.gov.bc.ca/resources/information/ and go to the 'enforcement' section at the bottom, this gives you the time frames that they work to in terms of enforcement and ways of putting them in place. When I log onto the site as a recipient, I can see the exact dates that they have applied for credit reporting, land searches, land registry for liens, etc., and they are actually, within days of the guidelines given. Also due to the 'late payments' charge that the payor gets charged, my maintenance has now started being paid a week earlier to avoid those late payment charges!

So, having licence, vehicle registration revoked - it's not like having your licence cancelled, they just wouldn't renew it for you the next time. Go through the website, as sooner or later you will need it - and if he's into playing the guilt trip on what will happen, thinking you don't know the rules there, then you can call his bluff and know exactly what will happen. One thing with FMEP in BC - if they say they will do it, they will do it - however, they will also come to a repayment arrangement with a payor who is in arrears, they will not tolerate someone just ignoring them though. Hope this helps.......the only one who should be feeling guilty is the ex.

4m1n4 wrote: »

Hi - I have been reading this forum for a while and usually check in to see how people are progressing. I am quite shy about my situation but I realised it was selfish of me not to share my experience with all of you. I am in process with REMO to get child support for my daughter where her father lives in the US. I started the process almost 3 years ago (my ex is a lawyer and this is all one big game for him) and I now feel like I have more family law experience than many family lawyers. I ended up having to go to court for both residence and contact issues and to also get a court order for child maintenance. I have gone all the way through to the High Court and so I know the process at each level. I now have a court order for child support in the UK and I have sent it to the US for it to be enforced. I have my registration hearing in two weeks time where the US court is going to dial me into the proceedings.

If anyone has any questions regarding how REMO works with respect to the US, I am more than happy to explain the process which is called (UIEFSA) and can direct you a variety of free resources that can help.

With respect to REMO, I think the system works best if you use it only after you have a court order from a UK court. If you try and use them to create an order in a foreign jurisdiction whilst in theory it should work, in practice it doesn't. If anyone has any questions on how to get an order where there has not been one previously, again I can explain how I did it and how I got them to backdate it.

I have spent 3+ years of my life and all my savings sorting out my mess and whilst I am very happy with the result and very happy with my solicitor, who was amazing. I appreciate that not everyone can be as fortunate as me and so I would like to share my knowledge

Hi, I spent some time reading these blogs and I too feel that I would be selfish not to share my experiences also.

My ex relocated to the US in late 2006 at which time our son was 6 months old. We were never married and my ex had his own home although he resided almost permanently at my home. We split up when he relocated to the US but remained friendly until April 2008 when we had a major fallout and we have not spoken since and he has had no contact with me or our son whatsoever since then.

He paid voluntary maintenance of £300 per month from late 2006 until April 2008 when he stopped payments. I approached a family solicitor here for assistance with a REMO application in early 2009. She insisted on contacting him to try to work things out amicably. He ignored her emails and letters and this went on for approximately a year until in early 2010 I realised that she had no idea about REMO applications!! I decided to put together a REMO application myself and I contacted my local Court and was directed to Barnet County Court. Luckily for me, they had a Clerk there who was very experienced with REMO applications and he sent me the relevant paperwork.

I eventually completed the paperwork and attended Court to swear it in front of the Judge and a Clerk in late April 2010. I did not hear anything for 3 months so I contacted the Court who told me that due to the change of government they had been instructed to forward all their files to the part of the Official Solicitor's office that deals with maintenance here and there was no case number as in Courts here no orders are made in REMO matters so no number is allocated.

I contacted REMO and they had no record of my case and it was not registered on their computer system. After several weeks and enormous difficulty I got through to the right department at the Official Solicitor's office who told me they did not have my file and had no record of having ever received it. I therefore contacted the Courts in California where my ex now lives and funnily enough they had a record of having received the paperwork and were able to direct me to the Court dealing with my application there and give me the reference numbers etc for my case!! They also instructed me that they had sent two or three letters for my attention which I had never received, informing me and the Courts that they had been sent copies of the paperwork and they needed originals to go before their Judge and also enclosing additional paperwork for me to complete. I therefore referrred back to the Official Solicitors office and got an email address there and an email address for the REMO officer and the Clerk at my local Court and I put the three parties in touch with one another so they could liaise directly.

The Courts etc here searched high and low for my paperwork but as it did not turn up I had to return to Court and re-swear all the documents in December 2010. Due to holidays etc it was eventually received in the US in February 2011 and two months later there is now a proposed Judgment for a considerable sum of money per month and a Summons has been issued which they are trying to serve on my ex. Once this has been served he has 30 days in which to oppose the Summons failing which the proposed Judgment will be finalised and made a formal Order.

The sum of money I am to receive each month is far more than I would have been awarded had I applied for maintenance through Ancillary Relief here as I think the percentage of income used for maintenance here is approximately 15% and it is more like 25% in California on top of which you can also claim things like private school fees and childcare costs.

I was looking into how to go about making a claim for myself via Ancillary Relief here and I came across the information regarding the carers allowance on this blog. I am definitely going to go down that route. As the Courts in the US will not backdate claims and my ex has not paid anything for 3 years now, I will also apply for a Lump Sum Order to cover the payments not received during that period.

I should also say that just like you I also now feel like I know a great deal about the system and how it works, hence the name I have chosen to use on this blog.

4m1n4 wrote: »

I was told not to call directly by REMO but I ignored them and called and sent docs directly to the state. The courts here are just too slow otherwise. I would find the clerk who deals with "incoming UIFSA" in the local court and (they can find your case by his SS no) and fax them directly the letter you sent in Feb. They should be using the Federal Parent locator service too which should track him down through his employment. Make friends with the clerk and phone every 10 days for updates.

I had my registration hearing this week and it went well. It was in front of a hearing officer and they provided a lawyer from child services who "represented London" . They ruled to register the order but he is still appealing the registration and it will be in front of a judge in about a month's time. Supposedly the order will be enforced in the interim....so will be on the phone to their probation department to check all the details etc. I now have contacts all throughout the the system and am looking to manage the whole process myself rather than rely on the snail pace of REMO. I don't think the problem is actually at the REMO office but at the UK local court level.

I was also told not to contact the Courts in America directly and that I should send everything through my local Court who would forward the documents to REMO here in the UK, who would in turn forward the paperwork to the US Courts and I also chose to ignore these instructions in order to speed things up. Therefore I send documents directly to the US Court and I am also in touch with them by email and they in turn send me emails and documents by post. This has definitely sped things up as since re-submitting my paperwork at the end of December 2010, a proposed Order was prepared by the end of March 2011 and subject to the NRP opposing the Order, hopefully things will be finalised within the next couple of months.