Q: lived in California 5 years and last year noticed on my credit report a child support case but have no children here

A: First you have to find out what is going on. Ask unemployment WHO is taking out 25% of your benefits to tell you where the money is going. In California it is probably going to the Child Support State Disbursement Unit. Here is a link to their site. https://childsupport.ca.gov/state-disbursement-unit/. Also contact the State Disbursement Unit directly and ask them to track down your case. What you are looking for is the court order that backs up the the 25% payment. You are also looking for a case number. Child support CAN be ordered in Michigan and collected in California, across state lines. You need a Child Support Services case number in California and then get all the paperwork from Child Support Services or a court in California. It may lead back to a Michigan case. Then you want someone to go to the Child Support Services agency in Michigan to get a copy of the paper work there. There may be a separate family law court order there. In the paperwork there will be a request for the child support which was supposedly served on you. Someone will have claimed to have served you with the paperwork. That "proof of service" form is a critical document. It is hard to know whether you will be able to challenge the paperwork for improper service or not. Maybe. Maybe not. After you get all the paperwork, it is strongly recommended that you contact a Family Law attorney who works in the area of child support. This is not something that the Self-Help Center is likely to be able to help you with.

Even if you cannot challenge the initial child support order, your income has now gone down and you will probably be able to lower the child support. But you have to file a Request For Order form to do that. Get started right away. The longer you wait, the longer the meter is running on the higher support order.

When you ask a question online, like here, the answers you get are only going to be basic information, a starting point. Attorneys are trained to talk to you to find out all the important details of your story. Getting all the details is very important because it will make a big difference in the legal information given to you. It is strongly recommended that even if you get a response here on Justia, that you also talk to an attorney. Many have free first interviews. Even if you have to pay, it is worth it because you talking to a professional who is going to focus on you.