Enforcement of Child Support Orders

Parents who routinely fail to pay child support have the amounts deducted from their wages under state and federal laws. All child support orders authorize a wage deduction from the paying parent's job income. Additionally, tax refunds can be seized if child support is owed. Commonly, the non-paying parent is held in contempt of court and is fined or even jailed for failing to make child support payments. The parent who should be receiving child support payments (and is not) generally files a motion asking the court to enforce the child support payments.

Sidebar: Holding the non-paying spouse in contempt is a tricky remedy, because a person in jail obviously cannot earn income. Judges take this into consideration before placing a parent in jail.

TIP: Interest accrues on unpaid child support.

Uniform Interstate Family Support Act (UIFSA)

The Uniform Interstate Family Support Act allows parents to more easily collect child support from parents who live in other states. The Act permits only one support order to be in effect for the child, which consequently allows for one controlling order (rather than several issued by the different states).

Significantly, the Act allows the state that issued the order to withhold income from the parent who is not paying, although they are employed in another state. "Direct income withholding" is accomplished by sending the child support order directly to the out-of-state employer who, under federal law, must comply with a "wage withholding order."

TIP: Child support orders should be registered in the state where the paying parent lives.

Child support lien

Laws may allow the parent who is not receiving child support to obtain a lien on the non-paying parent's property. A person with a lien can seize the property and sell it to satisfy an outstanding debt. Typically, personal property is seized by the sheriff and sold at auction. The proceeds go to pay off the child support arrears.

Our use of cookies

We use necessary cookies to make our site work. We would also like to set some optional cookies. We won't set these optional cookies unless you enable them. Please choose whether this site may use optional cookies by selecting 'On' or 'Off' for each category below. Using this tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences.

For more detailed information about the cookies we use, see our Cookie notice.

Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions.

Functionality cookies

We'd like to set cookies to provide you with a better customer experience. For more information on these cookies, please see our cookie notice.