If I don’t pay child support, what can happen to me?

If I don’t pay child support, what can happen to me?

 

This is an excellent question.

The answer depends on whether you have a legal agreement or court order.

If there is no legal agreement or court order in place, and your family lives in Ontario, there is an immediate obligation to pay to support your child. This applies whether there is an agreement or not or a court order or not. That starts accumulating right away, though no one can enforce when there is no court order or written agreement.

We will make some assumptions to answer this. We assume the child or children live for over 60% of the time with the other parent. For the sake of this example, we will call that person Kris. If your kids live with Kris and you parent them for less than 40% of the time, and you have an income over $12,000 then you will owe child support to Kris.

There are other factors in play, such as whether you have any children from a prior relationship that you already pay child support for, but leaving those facts aside, yes, you have an obligation to pay in our example.

Then let’s assume you have a signed Separation Agreement or a Court order that says you pay Kris $1,000 per month. As you may know, a Separation Agreement as well as a Court Order for child support can be enforced through the Ontario provincial government’s program called the Family Responsibility Office. They can enforce payment for agreements and court orders in Ontario as well as from other areas.

If you do not pay and Family Responsibility Office becomes involved, they have a number of options to collect on the child support.

Initially, if you are behind on your payments to Kris and they are involved, contact them right away to see if they can work with you to arrange for a schedule of catch-up payments. They have their own website and can be reached through FRO Online. They can help you arrange a payment plan.

If you do not contact them and fall further behind in support to Kris, the FRO has the following options:

1.  Garnish your bank account
2. Deduct the child support from federal government payments
   • This means they will reach out to the federal government and inform them you are in arrears of support. The government will then take any federal money owing to you and send it to the Family Responsibility Office to pay the child support to Kris. Federal money coming to you can be from income tax refunds (100%), EI benefits, any federal training allowances, Canada Pension Plan benefits, Old Age Security payments and interest on any Bank of Canada savings bonds (100%). All the rest they can take 50%.
3. report you to the Credit Bureau
4. Suspend your Driver’s Licence
   • They will send you a notice that they are going to suspend your driving licence. It is enough time to immediately get in touch with them to arrange for a payment plan. If you let the time go by, they will suspend your licence and should you be caught driving with a suspended licence, the police can impound the car you are driving, even if you do not own the car.

5. suspend federal licences including your passport

6. put a lien on your property

7. sell your property without your permission

• • This means they can sell your house, land, car or boat. The money will then be paid to Kris.

8. report you to your professional or occupational organisation

9. seize any lottery winnings that exceed $1,000

In short, you want to pay your child support.  All these things can significantly complicate your life. If you have brought things to this level, that the Family Responsibility Office is seeking to do any of these things, you need to act promptly to make payments to them and to arrange a payment plan with them. It is possible that if you are ordered by a Judge to do certain things and you default, the Family Responsibility Office can bring you back into court and ask for you to be found to be in contempt of Court. Contempt of court can have more serious consequences, such as a fine or imprisonment. 

All these options are open for enforcement of support for both child support and spousal support if you must pay either one or both. If you find you need help because the Family Responsibility Office is bringing you to court, remember you can speak to us with no need of a big retainer. You simply pay for the time you want to use. If it’s a question you believe we can help you with in half an hour, then that’s the limit of the costs to you. Just click the Book a Consult button and you’re one step closer to help.