Contact an Experienced Attorney when Assistance Needed
Video Transcribed: Enforcing child support in Oklahoma through loss of a professional license. I’m Oklahoma attorney James Wirth. We’re about to talk about how to take someone’s professional license away in order to enforce a child support obligation.
In Oklahoma, there’s lots of different mechanisms to try to enforce child support, different things are good for different circumstances. In this case, we’re talking about somebody who has a professional license, so maybe they’re a doctor and RN or otherwise work in a licensed medical profession. Maybe they’re a teacher, or maybe it’s a different license.
Maybe it’s a hunting permit, anything that’s issued by the state like that, with one exception for attorneys, there’s an attorney exception for attorneys because it’s the Oklahoma Supreme Court that determines their licensing rather than a state agency.
It’s a little bit different there, but any other professional license like that, it can be taken away just like a driver’s license can be taken away if they are behind on the child support.
To trigger that, they have to be at least 90 days in arrearage. And that means that the amount of the arrearage is the equivalent of essentially three months worth of child support. If it gets to that point, you can file a motion with the court requesting that their professional license be taken away.
Additionally, rather than take it away, you could request it to be put on probation, where they have to make a payment of the current support every month for the next 36 months, as well as an arrearage payment in equal installments over the next 36 months to get them caught up.
And then if they’re on that kind of probationary period, you can set reviews. And if they’re not in compliance, the court can immediately, without further hearing at that point, revoke that professional license.
That would take away their ability to work or their ability to hunt under those circumstances so it can put a lot of leverage on the other side.
Sometimes the threat is stronger than actually carrying it out because you don’t want them to lose their job, certainly because that makes it more difficult to collect.
Also, under these circumstances where they have a professional license, if they are working in their profession, it may also be a good idea and an easier way to collect by doing an income assignment, garnishing those wages.
But this is one additional arrow in your quiver for collecting child support. If you want to see if it’s the best option or one of the options you should pursue in your case, talk to an attorney. You can talk to somebody in my office by going to makelaweasy.com.
