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Video Transcribed: Enforcing child support in Oklahoma through loss of a driver’s license. I’m Oklahoma attorney James Wirth, and we’re about to talk about how to enforce child support by taking someone’s license away.
So, Oklahoma law has lots of provisions to help collect with child support. And sometimes, you want to do a contempt citation, sometimes you want to garnish wages. There’s other options as well, but sometimes a good option would be to take somebody’s driver’s license away. So what does the law provide?
If somebody has an order in place for child support, and they’re not paying it, and they have an arrearage that is equal to up to 90 days of back due child support, then you could request that their driver’s license be suspended, and the court can grant that request and they will lose their driving privileges.
So, I have found in my practice, that’s sometimes not the best way to collect child support. If somebody doesn’t have a driver’s license, they maybe can’t get to work, it’s harder for them to maintain employment, to make money to pay the child support, but it can be used in another way.
Rather than requesting that the court immediately suspend driving privileges, you can request that the court put them on probation for three years.
And if they essentially agree to that probation, which, keep in mind, if they fail to agree to that probation, then we’re talking about an immediate suspension of the driver’s license, but instead you offer them the opportunity of probation, in order to get that, the law requires that they agree to a few things.
So first, they have to make an agreement they’re going to make all current child support payments. Second, they have to agree that they’re going to make payments on the full amount of their arrearages over a period of three years, or in a lump sum to get caught up.
If they agree to those things, the court can put them on probation to lose a driver’s license for three years, and have reviews to make sure that they’re in compliance.
As long as they’re in compliance, keep getting new review days until the three year term is up, in which case they should be current on their child support and paid off their arrearage, or, if during that time period, they fail to make payments, the court can immediately revoke driving privileges at that point.
So, it provides a mechanism to put pressure on the other side to get child support paid.
If you have to follow through or want to follow through to take the license, you can, but it may be more effective to put them on probation and just keep the pressure on to get them to pay those.
So if you’ve got an obligor that’s not paying their child support and you need help with that, have questions about your circumstances and the best way to collect, talk to an attorney.
You can talk to somebody at my office by going to makelaweasy.com.
