REMO-Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order

legalexec · 2 May 2011 at 5:38PM

Kimi

I agree with the others that you should not be feeling guilty.

I also want to let you know that when they contacted him they probably let him know how much he would be expected to pay which is usual a great deal more in the US than he would pay in the UK, hence his request to use your address for a job application here as it would be in his interests to return but not yours and he is counting on the fact that you do not know this. Trust me, you will be financially better off if he remains in the US who at least will enforce the Child Support Order, unlike the useless CSA here who really do not have a clue and certainly would not enforce the payments through not renewing passports, suspending driving licences and other such licences in order to force the absent parent to pay up.

Please do not forget to apply for a carers allowance here via Ancillary Relief in the UK Courts if possible and if you have not already done so also apply for extra child support towards the costs of any classes or clubs that the children attend.

I found out that my ex has been paying Private School fees for his new wife's daughter during this past three years that he has not been supporting out son at all. His new wife does not work so he is also supporting her while she flits between the UK, Jamaica and the US. Needless to say I am getting quotes for private schools here for our son to attend when he starts year 1 of primary school in September and my ex will not have a leg to stand on if he tries to object to paying private school fees for his own child!! I am currently deliberating on whether to attach the claim towards the costs of private school fees to the Ancillary Relief application here or the US Order for Child Support, however I feel it will be the latter as from the research I have done it appears that the US Courts are more favourable towards awarding such extras.

Kimi31 · 2 May 2011 at 5:47PM

Legal
He cant come work here without a visa, he is american. And he cant get a visa without a job...lol
He isnt using my address. Though if he came here i would use CSA as i work for them ;-) and know how to get things done.lol
The letter he had was from the district attorneys office offering him the opportunity for them to represent him. He spoke to them and they told him that his driving licence, his car registration and also his financial licences would be suspended ( he is a financial advisor....the irony ) if he failed to pay once they order was made.

He apparently currently isnt working. Do they apply an average wage to his profession to calculate an amount??

Whats the carers allowance? I really dont want anything for me off him. Would rather he just coughed up for his children.

should i call Florida child support customer services and see what i can find out?

legalexec · 2 May 2011 at 7:35PM

Kimi

I apologise that our blogs seem to be out of sync as I missed your question and sent responses to your previous blogs.

I prepared two previous replies to your question but for some reason just when I was about to finish them I was thrown out of the forum and redirected back in and everything I had written had vanished.

I am not aware of my ex having been served with a similar Notice. However I am aware that each State in America has its own laws as to how it deals with cases.

My Child Support Order will be made in the US. There is no Order currently, simply a proposed Judgment and a Summons regarding that proposed Judgment. The Order will only be made after my ex has been served and if he does not appeal. If he does appeal, we will then be allocated a Court date and the Courts will notify me how I can be represented or take part in the hearing myself.

I do not have a UK Court Order. My paperwork was simply signed off in the UK Courts and forwarded to the US Courts via REMO. However, due to the length of time and unreliability of the Courts and UK office of REMO, I have since been dealing directly with the US Courts and I would definitely advise that you contact Florida Child Support Department to find out what your case number is and to ask them to contact you directly by email when they have served the documents on your ex. I am sure you will also want to find out from them how you can be represented or take part in your case also.

I also just saw your further blog responding to my direct blog to you. I had not taken into account the fact that in your case your ex is American as my ex is not, he is working there on a Visa. Therefore it is great that your ex cannot come to work here.

It is also good news that you work for the CSA so you know how to get things done. Athough now you have let that cat out of the bag you could be innundated with queries on here as to how to get things done through the CSA as I understand that if you have a CSA order in place here, you are not supposed to ask for a new Order through REMO but must apply to have your CSA Order enforced in your ex's new Country of residence. This is a real shame because the amounts NRP are ordered to pay via the CSA are much less here than they would be ordered to pay via a US Child Support Order. Lol lol.

The Courts often do work out an average income to base their Child Support calculation on. However, if the NRP is not working, this can be a waste of time as the NRP will simply appeal against an Order based on this calculation as they can successfully argue that they are not in receipt of such income and are therefore unable to pay.

The Carers Allowance which you can claim through Ancillary Relief here is for you and I understand your unwillingness to claim anything for yourself. However, what we often do not take into account is how much additional pressure having sole care of our children puts on us. For example, I realised that I was rushing around like a crazy person every weekday morning in order to drop my child off at the childminder by car before having to find parking then taking a bus and a tube in order to get to work on time and doing the same in the evening on finishing work. If I did not have to drop him off I could simply have taken one bus directly to work but time would not allow me to do that after dropping him off at 8am. I found it extremely draining. In addition to this I strugged with insufficient holidays in having to try to cover School holidays and extra appointments etc and being restricted on going out with friends or to meetings in the evenings because of a lack of childcare. As single parents we miss out on quite a lot and our lives are often quite restricted due to our additional responsibilities therefore we should not feel guilty about receiving recompense for the additional burden placed on us over many years.

As I mentioned earlier, you must definitely contact Florida Child Support for an update as you will feel better knowing exactly what is happening and where you stand and I look forward to hearing how you get on. As the US Government do not wish to support the children of absent parents, States receive $2 from the Government for every £1 they collect in child support which is an incentive for them to go all out to collect these payments. Therefore I feel sure that you will find the Florida Child Support Department very helpful and accommodating once you get through to them successfully.

I will of course let you know if I learn anything else that is useful and also how my case proceeds.

legalexec · 2 May 2011 at 7:49PM

Kimi

I just realised part of my previous glob was not totally helpful where I mentioned that your ex could successfully appeal against an Order based on assumed income. During my research I tried to find out how much unemployment benefit claimants are entitled to in the US and what I found was that unlike the system here where a single claimant would receive a single payment of approximately £65 per week and either have their rent paid or payments towards their mortgage after three months, unemployment benefits in the US are paid via unemployment insurance which I understand is a bit like income protection policies here which pay out a good proportion of your income on unemployment. Therefore as your ex is a financial advisor it is more likely than not that he had excellent cover, in which case he would still have a pretty decent income which the Courts can apply a Child Support Order against. I hope this helps.

Kimi31 · 2 May 2011 at 9:53PM

Thanks Legal
Will give them a call tomorrow.
Though i am sure he will appeal based on him having no income, tho i know he must have some after all surely if he hadnt made a car payment for 3 mths plus it would have been repossessed?

He did seem pretty spooked when he got the notice. So not sure how much research he has done.

Will post when i have phoned Florida tomorrow
X

AnxiousMum · 2 May 2011 at 9:58PM

If he is claiming that he currently has no income - if you know of assets that he has that he needs to be making payments on in order to keep them - ask the courts there if they have the ability to impute an income upon him. My ex tried this - quit his business to go to school - claimed no income. The court took the stance that he had children to provide for, and he did not take this into consideration when he quit his business and left himself supposedly with no income. He was however able to maintain the payments on his boat, keep it at it's moorage dock, pay his rent, make payments on his new truck etc. He could not show this income coming in. That, along with info from a friend of mine, who had a friend whose garden he was landscaping - got him an imputed income which was an average of his last three years of earnings, and the child maintenance payments were assessed on that basis, and the fact that supporting his children took precedence over any of the above payments he was able to somehow make. He went about it smart, and actually paid everything on his Mastercard - however, the Mastercard was still in the business name - so he kinda got caught. That was in Canada, and they do this regularly if a father ups and quits a job, or makes themselves intentionally unemployed. Not sure if it's the same in Florida or not, but wouldn't surprise me to find that they are just as stringent and on top of the games that some NRP's play. The evidence I was able to get was just a bonus

On the unemployment insurance thing - again, if like Canada - it's 80% of your pay for a period of 12 months - with maximum's put in place. About 15 years ago, the maximum in Canada was about $800 per week. Alot of those things are very similar between Canada and US - others very different!

AnxiousMum · 2 May 2011 at 10:05PM

Florida doesn't seem to be quite so generous - but here's a link, and if you scroll down, it gives you the amounts payable based on previous earnings and all the prerequisites to being able to claim. May give you some idea of what his actual income might be while on UI.

Of course, being a financial planner, he may also have had something arranged privately as well.

http://www.floridajobs.org/applications/ucfaq/faq_initialclaims.asp#Filing_a_Claim

Kimi31 · 2 May 2011 at 10:12PM

Im gonna guess he hasnt. He isnt a very good financial planner....he cant keep a job, In the 11 years i have been home from the USA i would say he has had about 7/8 jobs... He cant take orders from authority

Im also going to guess that cos his earnings are primarily commission based there will be a problem

Not feeling so positive about this now but will hold out some hope until i speak to Fl to morrow

AnxiousMum · 2 May 2011 at 10:20PM

Commission based is counted the same as actual earnings - where Florida asks that they take total income from the period they request, and divide by 26 to determine the weekly payable amount - that would include commissions.

Kimi31 · 2 May 2011 at 10:23PM

Fingers crossed

I have not had a good couple of weeks and do not need this to fail now

REMO-Reciprocal Enforcement of Maintenance Order

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