The Family Responsibility Office (FRO) Explained

A simple overview of Ontario’s Family Responsibility Office (FRO), including how it collects support payments and enforces child and spousal support orders.

The Family Responsibility Office

If you are involved in a matter where child support or spousal support are involved, you may hear your lawyer using the term FRO and wonder, what is it?

FRO is shortform for the Family Responsibility Office, a department of the Ministry of Social Services that was created and given legislative powers via The Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act to enforce child and spousal support orders, and to enforce child and/or spousal support provisions in signed Separation Agreements.  

The FRO ensures that support obligations made within court orders or Separation Agreements are paid and up to date.  When an order for support is made in court there is an automatic Support Deduction Order that authorizes the Family Responsibility Office to enforce and collect the support amount from the support payor pursuant to the terms of the court order.   The FRO collects the support payment from the support payor and gives the payment to the support recipient.

What Are the Benefits of Having the FRO?

The FRO will keep records of the monthly support payments that are due and what support payments were collected and paid by the support payor.   This is called a Statement of Arrears.  If the payments are up to date, the Statement of Arrears will show a zero-balance owing. When payments are not being made by the support payor, the Family Responsibility Office will track all missed payments and the total amount of arrears owing to the recipient in the Statement of Arrears.  This provides third party verification for all payments being made from payor to recipient and helps reduce or quickly clarify disputes about arrears owing.

The Family Responsibility Office also has the legal authority to collect the monthly support payments from the support payor’s employer directly via voluntary payroll deduction or to enforce the terms of the Court Order or Separation Agreement by garnishing the wages of the support payor.   The support payor can choose to pay FRO directly via bank account withdrawal to avoid involvement by their employer, so long as payments continue to be made.  Direct payment or payment from wages are the most common methods of payment, however, should the payor fall into arrears, FRO is authorized to collect the amounts owed by garnishing bank accounts, tax refunds or other tax credits owed to the payor.  As a result, FRO provides better collection rates due to their legal authority to freeze and seize assets directly from the payor to satisfy the debt.  

If these methods are not successful, the FRO may escalate their actions by taking steps to suspend the payor’s provincial and federal licenses, such as their driver’s license, boating license, or fishing license.  They may also suspend the payor’s passport in serious cases.  Suspension of a driver’s license is often very impactful to the payor, as access to their vehicle is often essential for work and childcare purposes.  

A Notice of Driver’s License Suspension received by the payor gives them a period of 30 days to respond.  Payors can contact the FRO and make full payment of all arrears owing, arrange a voluntary payment plan to recommence regular monthly payments and start paying off the arrears, or can go to court to ask for a refraining order which would prevent the FRO from suspending the payor’s drivers’ license subject to certain terms.  

If there are substantial arrears and other enforcement actions have not been successful, the matter may be returned to court by FRO for a Default Hearing, where the payor must explain why they are behind in their support obligations.  At this hearing, the court has the ability to jail the payor for up to 180 days.  It is therefore very important to ensure that if you are the payor that you are up to date with your support obligation and that you do not fall into any arrears as there may be very serious consequences for missing payments.

Why is It Important to Update Your Support Court Order/ Separation Agreement With the FRO?

The FRO must enforce the order or agreement that it receives, as it is written, and as a result cannot agree to a reduction of any monthly support payments as outlined in a court order or separation agreement.  So, if a payor thinks the support amount is incorrect, they must take steps to have the order or agreement changed by consent or by court action.  

Child support can be adjusted on consent through the FRO’s Child Support Service under very limited circumstances.  Otherwise, the parties must either negotiate and agree to file a Motion to Change on consent, or the payor must commence a Motion to Change with the court to ask for a variation of the amount.  If an order is made, it will be forwarded to FRO to update their enforcement amounts.  

The parties can consent to withdrawal from FRO at any point in time by signing a Notice of Withdrawal with the Family Responsibility Office.  If the payor falls into arrears in the future, the order can be refiled with FRO for a fee. 

It is important that you also notify the FRO when the payor’s support obligation ends, to stop enforcement. FRO will continue to collect until it receives a new agreement, court order or Notice of Withdrawal.  If the parties do not agree on the termination of support, one of the parties will need to return the matter to court to have the court decide on the issue.  Any new order that confirms either the termination of support or a new support amount shall automatically be forwarded to FRO upon being ordered.