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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

'Till Death Does You and Your Documents Part


If you thought “till death does us part” was only for the wedding vows, consider how it applies to your documents.  It is indeed the time of year when many engage in spring cleaning and purge their home of unneeded papers.  There is something liberating about “traveling light” through life.  But if you have been ordered to pay child support, you might want to think twice before ever throwing out those old cancelled checks, money order receipts, and related documents. 
Let us suppose that as a child support obligor (i.e. the one who paid support as opposed to the one who received support), your children were emancipated long ago.  Let us further suppose that you paid support in full, you divorced in 1977, and you have not had any contact with your ex spouse since 1985.  No matter how tempting the urge to feed them to the shredder, don’t do it!
What would you do if you destroyed those receipts and the following week you were served papers from your long ago divorced spouse claiming you failed to pay child support and asking that you be held in contempt of court, thrown in jail, and that a judgment be placed against you for fifty thousand dollars plus interest compounded annually for decades at the rate of nine percent?  Unless you have proof, you might be in a really bad position.  In short, once your prior spouse testifies under oath that you did not pay, the burden shifts to you to show you did.   Without documents, your claims that you paid and your representations that she knows you paid are meaningless.
While you might think this process makes no sense, it actually does.  From the beginning when child support laws were first put on the books, non-custodial parents have skipped out on their financial responsibilities to their children, moved out of state, and made themselves poor on paper (at least for a time).  As a result, some states have changed their laws to declare that child support obligations have no statute of limitations.
If you now wonder whether you will ever get rid of that box in the attic, the answer is that you can throw it out, but only if you have some way of proving you are paid in full, such as previously entered court orders that say you have paid all of your child support and related expenses.  To learn more specifics, be sure to consult a divorce attorney in your state.  Otherwise, hang onto those documents…” 'till death do you part.”

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