Q: My sons father is not following our custody agreement and not paying Child Support, what are my next steps?
I have in place a custody agreement with my sons father we made a few years ago. At the time I was living in Mecklenburg county Charlotte NC now I am living in Gaston County Gastonia NC. Will I need to continue in Mecklenburg county? He has not been following the agreement and has not paid full child support in close to 2 years. What are my next steps for receiving full child support? I have medical bills from my son over a year ago that he has still not helped pay half of and are now on my credit.
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- North Carolina
- (910) 333-9679
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A: Your first step is to determine if he has the ability to pay and is simply not paying or if he legitimately can not pay. If he legitimately can not pay, you would be wasting your time and effort. if he has the ability to pay but simply doesn't or won't reduce the cost of his current lifestyle to pay, the easiest thing is to sic child support enforcement on him. They are slow but low cost or free. You could hire a private attorney for the child support aspect which might be quicker but would definitely cost more. As to enforcing other parts of the agreement, how you do that depends on whether this is just an agreement or if it was something that was incorporated into a divorce judgement or otherwise made a court order. If is just an agreement - enforcing that will be slow and expensive. If your agreement has been transformed into a court order, you can pop him with a motion to show cause fairly quickly and likely at a lower cost - all with the possibility of getting attorney fees awarded to you if the agreement was properly drafted. Best of luck.
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