5 CONSEQUENCES OF NOT PAYING CHILD SUPPORT IN NEW YORK

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The child support program in the state of New York can legally collect overdue child support (arrears) and obtain health insurance coverage through a variety of enforcement actions. These actions can take effect without any party having to go to court.

I’m going to share the 5 primary consequences you may face if you decide not to pay your court-ordered child support in New York.

1.     Driver’s license suspension

If your child support payment is more than 4 months overdue, your driving license may be suspended. You will receive a notice in the mail regarding your license suspension titled “Important Notice Regarding Your Driving privileges and Your Failure to Pay Child Support”.

This suspension can be avoided by completing 1 out of 3 of the options within 45 days:

·       Making full payment

·       Entering into a Satisfactory Payment Arrangement

·       Submission of written challenge or documentation indicating financial exemption from suspension of driving privileges

For the suspension of your license due to nonpayment of child support, you may qualify for a restricted use license. To do so, you need to apply for a restricted use license in person at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office. This limits your vehicle usage and certain conditions have to be met before you are qualified to use your vehicle.

Here’s the long list of documents and forms you may require:

·       Important Notice Regarding Your Driving Privileges and Your Failure to Pay Child Support

·       Satisfactory Payment Arrangements to Avoid or Terminate Suspension of Driving Privileges

·       Notice of First Failure to Comply with Payment Plan

·       Notice of Second Failure to Comply with Payment Plan

·       Review of Challenge to Notice to Suspend Driver License—(Upheld or Denied)

·       Driver License Suspension Request…or Challenge

·       Affidavit of Net Worth

2.     Passport denial

In the event that you owe more than $2,500 of child support payments, your application or renewal of a passport will be denied. As a passport applicant that has been identified as having child support arrearages, federal law requires your passport to be denied, revoked, restricted or limited.

To counter these restrictions, you must either pay the arrears in full, or you may request for an emergency release of your passport if you qualify. The information regarding your passport denial will be included with federal notices about your tax refund offsets. Once you fulfill these conditions, your passport denial will be released.

These documents and forms may be required for your passport denial to be released:

·       Tax offset letter includes statement regarding passport denial

·       Denial of Passport for Certification of Arrearage in Child Support

·       Challenge with Request for Administrative Review

3.     Freezing of financial assets

With child support payments that are overdue for more than 2 months or larger than $300, your bank account(s) may be frozen. There are only 2 solutions to this, which is to either:

·       Pay off the amount shown in the notice

·       File a claim within 15 days

Here is a list of the various documents and forms you might need:

·       Restraining Notice

·       Notice to Judgment Debtor/Obligor of Restraining Notice

·       Notice to Vacate Restraining Notice or Execution

·       Mistake of Fact or Exempt Money Claim

·       Child Support Enforcement Execution and Notice

·       Notice of Determination of Your Mistake of Fact and/or Exempt Money Claim

4.     Income tax refund intercepts (Both Federal & State)

There is a possibility for your State tax refunds to be intercepted when your child support payments are more than $50 overdue. As for the Federal tax refunds, more leverage is given, and will likely be intercepted when the amount reaches more than $150. You will also be notified in early September if your tax refund will be intercepted.

To prevent your tax refunds from being intercepted, you must either:

·       Pay the full amount that is overdue

·       File a challenge by the date in the notice.

These are the documents and forms you may need:

·       Federal: Tax Refund Pre-Offset Notice with "Important Information"

·       New York State: Notice of Claim Against Your Income Tax Refund

·       Request for Administrative Review – Use this to challenge the tax refund intercept)

5.     Lower credit ratings

When you have child support payments that are overdue for more than 2 months or larger than $1,000, your name may be submitted to the major consumer credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus. With this in place, your credit ratings will drop, and it will be difficult for you to obtain a loan or any other forms of credit until your overdue child support payments are cleared.

In order to avoid this, you need to accomplish either 1 of the 3 within 10 days:

·       Reduce the overdue amount to less than $1,000

·       Reduce the amount overdue to less than what is supposed to be paid for 2 months

·       File a claim for mistake of fact

For the relevant documents and forms you may need, you’ll have to report to the various Consumer Reporting Agencies.

In New York, failing to obey a court order can result in jail time so it is important to pay your child support in full and on time. If you have any issues, don’t just ignore them, call a New York City child support attorney like Joleena Louis Law to learn your options.