How do you collect child support for a child that is not yours but is under 18?
My aunt died on Feb-2007. She did not have a will in place when she died. She was a resident of Mississippi and had a 16 year old son. The father is still alive and resides in Chicago, however he is not paying child support for this child. Before she died he stopped paying child support because he had his employer start to pay him cash under the table. So that the child support wouldn't be taken out of his check. How do we (the family) go after him for child support? He is not helping support this child and has said that he does not want the 16 year old living with him and his wife (he and my aunt were never married). Please if anyone knows what we should do, this is not right.
Answers:
First of all. i'm sorry about your loss...
Second... I commend you for opening up your home and stepping up to take care of this child. God Bless YOU!
Instead of going after him for support, what I recommend you do is get on non needy TANF with the state. That way you will get a a consistent amount of about $400 per month and you dont have to go through all the paper work to file child support because the state will do it for you. Once you get on non needy TANF with the state, the state will automatically go after the parents for reimbursement of TANF money. Even if he isn't "working" they will impute his income and a set amount will be entered. He will eventually get behind on his payments and liens against his property will be issues. His house, cars, land, business, anything he owns can and will get repossessed if he falls behind in support. Its call tough love. His son lived with out his support for X amount of years and its his responsibility to take care of his offspring. If you ever get off TANF for what ever reason, child support will be assigned to you. Most state child support orders say the duration of support will last until the child is 18 or out of high school which ever occurs last.
I wish You the best of luck!
Hire an attorney!
hire an atty that is familiar with child support laws.
You can't get child support unless you have leagal guardianship over the child.
The first thing you need to do is have someone in the family (whoever he will be living with), file for custody or guardianship of the child. Once you have that you can petition for child support
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