Many people are not aware that the non-payment of child support can have far-reaching consequences. One of them is child support garnishment in personal injury settlement cases. This goes on to mean that if you have child support due, then it can result in money being taken away from your injury case settlement to pay for it.
The question that many people wonder is, can personal injury settlement be garnished?
The simple answer is, yes.
Being Due On Child Support
If there is a divorce or a break-up of a relationship between two people, there is often the custody of children to worry about. The non-custodial parent has to pay some sort of child support to meet his responsibility towards the children. It is also quite common for such non-custodial parents to be due on child support. This hurts the children and the custodial parent in more ways than one.
That is why when you receive a personal injury settlement, you should know that it can be garnished to pay for child support. This may be shocking when part of your settlement goes to pay the child support debts you may have incurred over the years.
Understanding How Child Support Garnish Works
If you find yourself in such a situation, the smart thing to do would be to get legal representation to protect your financial interests. Child support arrears mean the amount of money a parent is behind in payments for child support.
You can understand better with a simple example. Let’s say two people Tom and Jane get divorced and Tom owes Jane $200 weekly in child support. After this, Tom finds himself in an accident through no fault of his own and he becomes unable to pay child support.
After this, Tom files a personal injury case and the settlement compensation he gets is a substantial $3,50,000. By this time, Sam has fallen back on child support payments and he owes Jane $30,000 in arrears. Now that he has got money from the settlement, the court may decree that he give part of it to clear his child support due to payments.
Child Support Arrears Can Dictate How Much Settlement A Person Receives
When a settlement amount has been agreed to by all the parties in the personal injury case, the settlement money will be used towards paying the medical bills and other bills that are due. After this, the rest of the money may go towards you or it may go towards paying child support.
How much money the settlement will go towards paying your child support arrears depends on the state you live in as well as the expertise of the lawyer you have hired.
To Wrap It Up
When you know a personal injury settlement is going to come in and you are due for child support, it is in your best interests to get as much knowledge as possible as well as good legal representation.
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