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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