We're All Mad Here - Final Thoughts (For Now)

Here's a calm, pretty picture to lighten the tone of the last few posts. Via Unsplash.

I've spent the past few posts sharing my experiences to date with Family Court in Manhattan - specifically, Support Court. I may share my experiences with the Custody part of this horror show at a later date.

I want to add that I've been told it's near impossible to switch magistrates. Doing so requires appearing before your currently assigned magistrate, asking him/her to recuse her/himself from your case, and then writing a letter to the supervising judge. The process continues from there, but I was informed by the lawyer who provides free advice in the Family Court petition room that it's a lengthy process that very rarely gets approved. Recusals are often only approved in instances in which the magistrate is personally known or related to one of the parties. I have thought about trying anyway, but should the switch not go through, I'm stuck with a magistrate who now knows just how much I despise her.

In conclusion, I want to make something crystal clear, in case there are ever readers of this tale. I did not force a child on my ex. She was not planned, but was wanted by both of us. In fact, my ex urged me to keep her when I was initially unsure, promising to mature, become responsible, and be a good father.

Promises are broken, however, and I had to turn to Family Court to help me get my ex to provide for his child. This system is dysfunctional, though, and not set up to do what is in the best interests of the children. I get that tax dollars only go so far, magistrates can only handle so much. But it took A YEAR from the date of my first filing till I received a decision. It'll be several more years before the arrears balance is paid off. I'm "fortunate" in that I was able to scrape by, by borrowing against my 401k, draining my savings, and putting a month's tuition on a credit card. Obviously, this sucked. I had no savings to fall back on if an emergency came up. I couldn't afford to do anything fun, and a lot of times, figuring out paying my bills was stressful. I will pay interest on that 401k loan and the credit card debt. But the alternative - not being able to pay my bills or afford childcare - is worse. What if I truly ran out of resources and had to quit my job to stay home with my child? What if I had to move closer to family for help? Who would have suffered then? If I quit my job, I might have had to rely on government resources - unemployment, medicare, food stamps. If I were forced to move, my and Audrey's lives would have been uprooted, and the visitation schedule would have to change/decrease. All because the magistrate couldn't have bothered to issue a new order or at least schedule a trial the first time I appeared, last July. So Family Court, how about you remind some of your magistrates (this isn't a blanket statement, I'm sure some of them care about their jobs) that there are children involved here? Children that need food and a bed to sleep in. Children whose custodial parent needs to work to provide those things, but needs childcare to do so. I'm aware that the problem is so much bigger than family court - affordable childcare is a joke in this country - but in the case of single parent families like mine, Family Court can be one of the places that does whatever small part they can to fix a huge problem.

To be continued, ad nauseam, I'm sure.

We're All Mad Here Part Trois

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.

We're All Mad Here Part Deux

In my last post, I started discussing my experiences with Family Court in Manhattan, specifically, Support court.

I left off with a summary of how our original support order was determined, and mentioned that what I had been dealing with over the past year or so had been a nightmare.

Early last Spring, after a slow deterioration of that amicable co-parenting relationship my ex and I had, we both determined that our current child care arrangement, of him spending business hours with our daughter in my apartment, was no longer working. For now, I won't say too much as far as why. I don't want to bash my ex excessively in this space. We had this arrangement in place for a number of reasons - the two biggest being a) childcare is expensive. We already worked opposite schedules, it made sense for him to keep watching her during the day while I worked to save us both money and b) he didn't live somewhere suitable to take a small child. However, after a year and a half of this arrangement, it was time for full time childcare.

I handled finding the full-time childcare. I guess that process requires a separate post, so I'll just summarize by saying that I found a reasonably priced, safe preschool. It was close to home, I liked the teachers and the director, Audrey seemed to like it, and the hours were perfect. And although reasonably priced by Manhattan standards, it was expensive by rest-of-the-world standards, by not-on-a-six-figure-income standards. My ex refused to pay willingly, and was certain that he would not be obligated to pay anything by the court.

This is where the fun with family court started. I filed a modification petition using the online DIY form. I brought this form in to the petition center on the first floor of 60 Lafayette. They created the petition, gave me my court date and asked who would serve my ex. I could have tried to do it myself, but the family court can have the sheriff's office do it when a violation is also involved (which it was, in this case - he also had an arrears balance) so I chose that option.

We appeared before a magistrate. I learned that a more senior judge/magistrate handles initial orders, and then future changes to that order are dispersed to other magistrates. The magistrate we were stuck with is awful. I googled her after several bad experiences, and found numerous complaints about her behavior.The general consensus was that she was rude, snippy, sarcastic and didn't seem to care about her job. I have NO problem naming the magistrate in the future, but until I get off her service, I think doing so could only screw me more. So for now, let's call her She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Our appearance was at the end of July, a month before Audrey would start preschool. I wanted to get the payments set up for when she started school, rather than start the long process when I was already shelling out the large expense on my own. However, the magistrate declined to set anything up, and simply told my ex to pay his share, even though the original order clearly indicated childcare expenses were to be paid through the SCU, not directly to me. I attempted to explain to her that I knew he refused to pay, which is why I was there. I even tried to show her a printed screenshot of a text message in which he states he will not pay. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't look at it. She didn't even ask him if he intended to pay. If she had, he would have said no.

At the time, I didn't have a lawyer, so I didn't know what to do next. I attempted to ask She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named what I was to do when September 1 rolled around and he still wasn't paying. She wouldn't answer me. So sure enough, on the first business day of September, my daughter's first day of preschool, I refiled. Our court date was to be in October. We got to court only to find out the magistrate had called out sick. We weren't given any prior notification of this. I had taken the morning off work, and wasted hours of my time. We were rescheduled for November.

By our November date, I had hired a lawyer. I hired the lawyer not because I thought my ex had a case, but because She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named clearly didn't take me seriously, and I felt I needed someone "on my side" to help me deal with her blatant disrespect and disregard for what was fair, or necessary for my child's well-being. We informed She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that my ex was still refusing to pay, so she set a trial date. According to her, her first available date was four months later. I didn't believe this at all, I simply saw it as another way for her to show her bias against me. My lawyer asked for relief in the meantime, which was denied. She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did suggest to my ex that he pay some additional amount in the meantime, because whatever she did award me in childcare would date back to the date of my filing, resulting in an arrears balance right away. A suggestion. Right. If anything but court enforced action worked, I wouldn't be there in the first place, lady.

By the date of our next appearance, four months later, my ex was not only not contributing anything extra towards childcare, but had stopped paying even his basic obligation. Our initial trial date finally came, and guess what was postponed? According to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's clerk, they were still catching up on cases that had been postponed due to snowstorms the week before, and our court date was now scheduled for 7 weeks later, in April. This is where I'll leave you for now. Stay tuned, the ridiculousness continues.

We're All Mad Here

There are a bunch of quotes engraved into the wall upon first entering the Family Court building in Manhattan. Stuff about kids being our future, justice prevailing, blah blah blah. I think this one, or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" needs to be added.

My dealings with Family Court were the first motivation in starting this blog. I wanted to vent my frustrations, collect my thoughts, and consolidate what I've learned through research, from my lawyer, and based on my own experiences. Like I've mentioned, I haven't seen a lot out there regarding people sharing their experiences as single parents (by choice, I've seen blogs by widows/widowers) in a blog format. Yes, it's messy. It's frustrating. It's a less than ideal situation. If anyone ever reads this, I hope they take something away from it - insight, hopefully some humor.

My ex and I were never married. Therefore, none of this was decided in divorce negotiations behind closed doors - everything was done in Family Court. There are two components of Family Court (for my purposes, anyway): Custody and Support. Support, for me, has been the more frustrating of the two, so I'll start there.

Some background: My ex and I split somewhat amicably, almost three years ago now. There was a final fight that led to him moving out, but we had been slowly but surely making our way to that point, and it had been clear for a while that neither of us wanted to be with the other, we were just in it for our daughter. Because there wasn't a ton of drama surrounding our split initially, we were able to come to an agreement amongst ourselves regarding childcare/visitation and support. However, about six months in, some problems began to arise and we both agreed we should have everything made "official" in Court. His child support payment increased from what he had been giving me previously, but it wasn't a dramatic enough amount to warrant a trial. We went in front of the Judge, who calculated the payments. My ex submitted his work information, and the payments were set up to come out of his check automatically.

The common understanding is that child support for one child is a flat 17% of the non-custodial parent's income. Not true. In cases where the combined income is less than $140,000, both parents' incomes are added, and then the percentage each parent supplies of that total income is calculated. The non-custodial parent pays his/her percentage of 17% of that combined income.

So for example, say the custodial parent's income is 60,000. The non-custodial parent's income is 40,000. Their combined income, for the math impaired, would be 100,000. 17% of this would be 17,000, and the non-custodial parent's obligation would be 40% of that, or 6,800. This is then divided by 52, to be paid weekly (or 12 to be paid monthly, etc. I think this varies based on the non-custodial's pay schedule, or maybe just some random reason the court comes up with). This is the basic support "award". I'm not sure what I've supposedly won here... Childcare and health care expenses are calculated seperately, at the non-custodial parent's obligation percentage, which is 40% in our example. Say childcare expenses are $1000 a month. The non-custodial parent is obligated to pay $400 a month. The Support Collections Unit (SCU) will break this down into a weekly payment to correspond with the basic support payment schedule, and divide it by 4.3 (the number of weeks in a month, according to the SCU). Medical expenses are calculated at the same percentage, but since they're usually a one time thing, not weekly/monthly, they were payable directly to me rather than through the SCU (which of course meant I never saw any of that money).

As you can see, this means that the custodial parent's income can increase, and the non-custodial parent's can stay the same, but the non-custodial's obligation percentage can decrease as a result. Fair, right? The custodial parent works harder, gets a raise, and the non-custodial parent is rewarded with a decrease in their obligation. Keep that in mind when I start getting into my recent adventures at court.

So an order is set up, you're done, right? Wrong. Over the past year alone, I have been back at Family Court to either file a petition or appear for court more times than I can count. What is a petition? There are violation petitions, for when the support isn't getting paid at all, on time or in full. There are modification petitions, for when there is a significant change in either parent's income or the custodial parent's child related expenses. I started the process of modifying our existing support order over a year ago, when I knew I was going to need full time childcare. Our previous order only had a small amount for a part-time babysitter.

I am still dealing with that, over a year and numerous appearances later. Now that I've provided my background and a very brief overview of how child support works in New York, I'll share my nightmare. But this post is long enough, so I'll continue tomorrow.