Child Support: Dept of Child Support Services Orders- Griffith Law
Friday, January 13th, 2012
John Griffith details the steps to take if you receive a letter from the Department of Child Support Services.
Website: www.griffithfamilylaw.com
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Twitter: @Griffith_Law
Hi my name is John Griffith. I’m a divorce and family law attorney here in San Diego, California. This is one of a series of videos that addresses common issues that we see in California divorce and family law cases. I should note that nothing I say is meant to be or intended to be or should be taken as legal advice. If you need legal advice regarding your family law issue, you should talk to a family law attorney. My office gives free consultations; I’d be happy to discuss your case with you if you’d like. Give my office a call and ask for John. Today I’ll be talking about the Department of Child Support Services. The Department of Child Support Services is an enforcement agency governed by the state for the collection and initiation of child support orders. If you’ve received a letter from the Department of Child Support Services that means the other parent has asked the Department of Child Support Services to either start an initial child support order, or establish an initial child support order, or take a child support order that was issued by a different court and enforce that order. So if you’ve received a letter from the Department of Child Support Services, you’re most likely the parent that pays child support to the other parent for the kids. Now when a Department of Child Support case is opened, it can either be opened with a petition to establish a parental relationship and parental obligations in which case there is not a current child support order, or it could be the registration of another order for enforcement. If you don’t have a current child support order in place, then you most likely received a petition to establish parental obligations. The first question you need to ask is whether or not the child that’s listed on the petition is in fact your child, and if you dispute the fact that the child is yours then you absolutely need to contest paternity expressly through the Department of Child Support Services, specifically the Family Support Division of the Superior Court. If you fail to respond to this petition with an answer, then the court a default paternity judgment against you, and you could be deemed to be the legal father or legal parent of this child without participating in the case and taking a paternity test. So it’s very important that you respond to the petition and ask the court to order a paternity test. Now the other side of it is if there’s the current order in place, it probably came from a family court as a result of a divorce or legal separation or some other kind of paternity action. There’s a current quarter in place that wasn’t previously being enforced by the Department of Child Support Services, but the other parent now wants the Department of Child Support Services to enforce that order. Now it’s very important that you respond to whatever the Department of Child Support Services is asking of you. Most likely they’re going to ask you to fill out what’s called an Income and Expense Declaration asking for your current income and to attach pay stubs and things like that. Now that Income and Expense Declaration is a four page document that the court looks at. There’s several factors that the court’s going to look at as far as the child support order is concerned and enforcement of the child support order is concerned. If you have any questions on that document, the Income and Expense Declaration, you should talk to an attorney about it and have an attorney help you fill that out. Now there are several ways that the Department of Child Support Services enforces an order for child support. If you’re behind in child support, the Department of Child Support Services can initiate driver’s license suspension. They can, if you owe more than two thousand dollars in child support, they can suspend your passport; they can also revoke your passport. They can notify the Department of State so that you can’t have a passport reissued after it expires. They can levy your bank account, they can levy your tax return, and you if hold a professional license like a law degree or a contractor’s license or medical license, they can actually suspend your license to do what you do for living. So it’s very important that you don’t ignore the letter
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Duration : 0:5:2
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