When you and your spouse divorced, your ex was ordered to make child support payments. These are monthly payments to help cover the cost of raising your child. Your ex has visitation rights and spends time with the child on weekends, but you have primary custody most of the time. This means you absorb many of the inherent costs of parenting, and child support is meant to help balance things out.
However, your ex has recently stopped making those payments. At first, they just told you they’d get you the money soon, but they always seem to come up with excuses, and now they’ve been missing payments for months. You’re not sure they’ll ever start paying again.
You may be wondering if you can deny those weekend visitation rights. The next time your ex comes to pick up the child, can you tell them they don’t get to spend time together until they start making child support payments?
You cannot withhold custody rights
No, withholding custody rights is not a viable way to enforce child support payments. Even if your ex hasn’t made payments and has no intention of doing so, you cannot deny them the right to spend time with their child. If you do, you could be held in contempt of court for violating the custody order.
So what should you do? You may need to ask the court to enforce the order. For instance, the court can sometimes issue an order for wage garnishment, meaning that your ex’s child support payments will be taken directly from their wages, leaving them no choice but to pay you.
Even when certain steps seem logical – such as withholding custody – they can be serious legal violations. Make sure you fully understand your options and know what steps to take to resolve a dispute.