Every parent has a duty to provide financial support to their legal children. This includes biological children and adopted children. This is a legal duty that remains in place regardless of whether the parents of a child separate or get divorced. When parents do separate or divorce, however, the court will often use a legally…
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My Ex Still Owes Child Support, But My Child Just Turned 18. Can I Still Get the Payments Owed?
Parents, regardless of being married, divorced, or never married at all, remain obligated to provide for their child. Child support orders are a means to help ensure that every child has his or her basic needs provided for. Arizona state law dictates the method by which child support is calculated. Courts are directed to utilize…
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What Are Child Support Arrears?
Divorce marks the legal end of a marriage. It does not mark the end of any support obligations a parent has to a child. Contrary to how many may act, divorce does not end a parent’s financial responsibility to provide for a child. In fact, child support payments are often critical to foster and preserve…
Continue reading…The High Price of NOT Paying Child Support
Q: Can parental rights be terminated for nonpayment of child support? “Deadbeat dads”– – or “deadbeat moms” for that matter – – earn that harsh title when they fail to pay child support or follow a predetermined visitation schedule after divorce. But as emotionally and financially devastating as this behavior may be on the children…
Continue reading…Options for Arizona Delinquent Child Support Fugitives
Q: What happens if I stop paying court-ordered child support? In Arizona, child support arrest warrants are serious business. Failing to pay required child support or to show up for a hearing at which the amount of the monthly child support payment was to be set, could make a parent a fugitive, subject to arrest….
Continue reading…The Who’s, Why’s and How’s of Paternity Testing
Q. How is paternity established? While establishing the identity of a child’s biological mother is virtually always easy, establishing paternity –or fatherhood – – is not always simple. “Who’s your daddy?” is an emotionally-charged question especially if asked in the context of a prospective divorce. Paternity lawsuits may be brought when the identity of a…
Continue reading…Timely Child Support Impacts National Poverty Level
Q: Can child support arrears be collected against a missing delinquent parent? Along with having children, comes the obligation to financially support them—whether you are married to the co-parent or not. When couples who don’t have children together get split up or divorce, they can often make a clean break from each other (with the…
Continue reading…“Deadbeat Dads” and Child Support Law in Arizona
Q: What happens if I fall behind in child support? Under Arizona law, custody and visitation are known as “legal decision making” and “parenting time,” respectively and the courts strongly encourage both parents to support and be actively involved in their children’s lives. Sometimes that isn’t possible. Like when one parent is incarcerated or in…
Continue reading…Enforcing Child Support
How can I enforce a child support order? One of the key issues in a divorce is child support that a non-custodial parent is required to pay. Far too often, however, so-called deadbeat parents are delinquent and owe back child support. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are state and federal…
Continue reading…Custody Dispute Leads to Deadly Shoot-Out
This summer we got a brutal reminder of just how contentious custody disputes can become. A man in Navajo County recently shot and killed the mother of his grandchildren and her mother on the courthouse steps after a custody hearing. According to a report in The Republic, the children at the heart of this dispute…
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