Question:
Should I have any concerns if my child support is garnished?
Answer:
Yes. First, your payments need to be on time and for the entire amount due. If you are being garnished through your employer you still need to monitor your paycheck to make sure the correct amount is being taken out by your employer and that your employer is sending the payments to the court as soon as possible after the garnishment and as frequently as possible.
Unfortunately, you may have no choice regarding the timing and amount of the garnishment. The court's garnishment order will control some of these factors and your employer's preferences may control the other factors
Why is it important that your employer sends in the garnished funds as frequently as possible?
The Rhode Island Family Court Systems Child Support collection unit has a computer system that automatically tacks on 12% which is statutory interest that accrues on all unpaid child support in its computer system. If your employer garnishes your pay weekly but only sends in the monies that are garnished at the end of the month, by the time the Court receives the check from your employer, processes it and records it in its computer system and processes a check to the placement parent the computer system will generally record you to be 4 weeks or more in arrears on your child support . The result? 12% statutory interest will be tacked on to your child support account without your even knowing it even though the funds were taken from you on a weekly basis.
Here's the rub. If you are garnished weekly and your employer sends in the payment once per month, then interest will not only accumulate without your knowledge but it will compound upon itself making it appear over time that you are weeks or even months behind in your child support. This could give the appearance that you are a deadbeat mom or deadbeat dad in the court's system.
If you do not address this little glitch in the Rhode Island Child Support Collection system for an extended period of time then you may one day discover that you owe hundreds or even thousands of dollars in interest that you did not know was accumulating. Getting it removed is easier said than done.
In the end, you may have paid your child support timely by garnishment only to find out months or years later that you owe thousands more, all because of a system glitch. Even if you have evidence from each employer you've had over the years that you were garnished timely, you may be held accountable for all those monies even if the accumulation was because your employer only chose to send in one check per month to save on bookkeeping hassles. At this point you may be held to in contempt or be required to pay all the excess interest as a result of your employer's bookkeeping practices.
Christopher A. Pearsall, Esquire
70 Dogwood Drive, Suite 304
West Warwick, RI 02893
Call (401) 632-6976 Now for your low-cost consultation.
from
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Copyright 2008. Christopher A. Pearsall, Attorney-at-Law
*The Rhode Island Supreme Court licenses all attorneys in the general practice of law.
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