You Could Be In Contempt Of Court
Video Transcribed: What happens if I don’t pay my child support? I’m Tulsa Family Law Attorney James Wirth, and that’s the question we have in Oklahoma. What can you expect to happen if you’ve got a child support order in place and you don’t pay it? Well, first off, it depends on what the other side does.
Ultimately, there’s an order in place. If you violate that order, that is contempt of court, but the court does not police its orders. Somebody else has to bring that to the court’s attention by filing a motion to get it before the court and pushing that forward.
If DHS is an interested party in your case and you’re not paying, they may do that rather than the other parent having to do that. It could get done that way. Otherwise, the other parent has to file with the court that alleged that you’re not paying.
What happens? Somebody could file an application for a contempt citation against you, alleging that you’re intentionally violating the court’s order, and request that you be thrown in jail for six months and pay a $500 fine. That is what can be done. Other things that can be done to collect are garnishing your wages and levying your bank account.
They could, and if the DHS is involved, there’s a way that they can file to take away your licenses, whether that’s a state driver’s license or a state professional license. They can request that it be taken away. It can be collected like a judgment, and it can be collected and enforced like a court order through contempt. Then there are other special mechanisms like losing licenses specific to child support.
There are a lot of potential negative consequences to not paying your child support. If you’re in that scenario, you want to talk to an attorney about that for sure. In that case, talk to an Oklahoma Child Support Attorney and get legal advice from counsel. To get that scheduled with an attorney at my office, you can go to makelaweasy.com.
