Potential/Maybe Non-Existant Reader, are you starting to see the problem here? As I started discussing here and here, I filled out my first petition to modify the existing child support order in June of 2013. Where I last left off, we were in April of 2014, with no resolution in site.
In April, we finally did have that trial. Thank you, magistrate, for finally consenting to do your job. At the trial, my ex tried to claim his income had dropped by $10k. Fortunately, I was prepared for this nonsense, because he had previously threatened to purposely reduce his income if I was award anything in childcare. In writing. Yeaaa .. form your own conclusions about his intelligence. My evidence included a screenshot of this text message, as well as a past year's W2, as I had done his taxes in the past, when we were still on good terms, and I had the foresight to keep copies. In his financial affidavit, my ex was asked his current rent. I had learned at the trial that he had moved, and in reviewing his financial affidavit, told my lawyer I knew his new rent was higher than his previous rent. My lawyer, of course, asked him about this at the trial, and he was forced to acknowledge that he had moved to a more expensive apartment.
Despite all of this, my own income had increased over the years, and so my ex's obligation dropped from 46% to 38%, even though She-who-must-not-be-named did stick with his income from previous years. She did, at least, acknowledge that he clearly purposely decreased his income, and therefore did not base his percentage off of his supposed reduced income. However, I don't feel like it's fair to reduce his percentage based on my income increasing. My ex works a four day work week. He waits tables. He takes numerous unpaid vacations a year. His income could easily be higher, but he chooses to do the bare minimum. I went to college, he did not. However, me going to college wasn't based on privilege. I was the first in my family to attend a four year college, so I had no connections or help navigating the process. I paid for it entirely on student loans, which I will probably still be paying off when I'm 50. If he didn't want to go to college, no problem. It isn't for everyone. But he can find a higher paying job. He can work a full time schedule (the horror!). He can, hold on to your seats here folks, crazy idea coming, work harder and work his way up to management in a restaurant. I worked harder. I constantly asked for more work, more engaging tasks. I actively pushed my managers to move me to a busier area. I worked overtime when I could. Because of all this, from the date of the original order to the date of the trial, I had increased my income by 40%. Why should he get a break as result of all of that?
In cases of disability, circumstances beyond the non-custodial parent's control, etc., I get the custodial parent stepping in and assuming more financial responsibility. But in cases of sheer laziness and lack of work ethic, it's not fair, and a major flaw of this system.
So, the trial's done, we're good to go, right? Of course not. Nothing is done efficiently here. Our lovely magistrate, upon the conclusion of our trial, stated that her decision was reserved. What this means is, she would be taking her time coming to a decision and issuing a new order. How long would one assume that takes? My lawyer said it's usually a week or two. So that fantastic magistrate of mine, how long did she take? A week? Two? Try six. I actually finally started calling the clerk's office, and mentioned filing a complaint with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's supervisor. Lo and behold, what arrives a week later? The final order. Was it correct? Of course not.
Like I mentioned above, the one fair thing She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did was base my ex's percentage off past years' income, but the arrears owed was calculated incorrectly, and is short a couple months' worth of childcare payments. I can't figure out what math she used, but I'm reminded of the "Kelevin" from The Office ... "A mistake plus Kelevin gets you home by seven!" Everything's made up and the points don't matter, remember?
Although the SCU sent the updated obligation to my ex's job, including an extra amount to start paying down the thousands in arrears, his job refused to cooperate for over a month. Nor did my ex send in the difference, of course. So the arrears continued to build. I called the SCU like a slightly obsessed ex-girlfriend. I got different answers every time. "His job has 20 days to respond before they get in trouble." "Oh no, we can't do anything to his job, 20 days was just an estimate of how long it takes." Oh, ok. Wish I had known that 20 days ago. I went into the SCU office to request the arrears be corrected several times. I was told to send in a letter to the audit department. A letter. There's no phone number, or email address, or even a place I could walk into. Apparently the SCU Audit department still lives in the 19th century where all communications took place via letters carried on horseback. Those letters also seem to vanish into thin air, because mine never received a response. So the next time I went into the SCU office, wondering why I never got a response, I was told by a different representative that I had gone about it in the wrong way, I should have gone back into Family Court. Guess what Family Court told me?
Yep, that SCU handles fixing arrears balances. Round and round we go, where we stop? Nobody knows. Clearly. I was also told I should have filed an objection to the order within 30 days of it being issued. Great. Tell that to the first guy I spoke to at the SCU, who gave me the wrong information. So moral of that story? If the arrears balance on your account is wrong, just stalk everybody.
At my latest journey to the Ninth Circle of Hell, as I so lovingly refer to family court, I filed a violation regarding the payments I still wasn't getting and a request to have the arrears fixed. I also learned that my ex had filed yet another downward modification request, despite the fact that he had just tried that in May and it was dismissed. Arrears payment is a little more complicated, with several factors involved. The SCU will take 1.5x the ordered amount to pay down arrears, but only up to 60% of the non-custodial parent's paycheck, and only if that amount doesn't put the payee below the self-support threshold for the year, which is slightly above the poverty line. Of course, because my ex let the arrears balance get so high, with the new childcare obligation and the extra 50% factored in, his weekly payment is rather large, and he claims he can't afford it. His solution to this problem, of course, isn't work harder and/or decrease frivolous spending, but attempt to decrease what he provides for his child. So now, here we are in present day. Eagerly awaiting yet another display of incompetence, laziness, and spoiled, arrogant, entitled behavior.
My final thoughts on all of this in one final post (for now anyway, there will be updates later) tomorrow.
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