Denton Family Lawyer

International Child Support

Parents, regardless of where they live, should have to support their children still. Unfortunately, when one of the parents moves outside of the country, this is often missed. There are a variety of reasons for the lack of child support, all of which contribute to the overall loss of funding. This in turn makes it harder for the parent with the children in his or her custody to support their children.

The United States estimates that roughly $24 billion in international child support goes unpaid and uncollected every year. The biggest problem among the various issues is that there is a massive amount of confusion in the world of international child support.

For starters, many countries, including the United Kingdom, have negotiated with individual states (Texas, Alaska, and Rhode Island) rather than signing an agreement with the United States as a whole. The United Kingdom has negotiated 33 different agreements which cause all sorts of problems. The dilemma is worse when people move. The agreement that has been arranged with Florida might be different from the arrangement with Maine. Things are worse when a person moves from a state with a negotiated agreement to a state that doesn’t have an agreement with the United Kingdom.

Laws of many countries are not compatible as well. The United States does require parents to pay child support to the parent that has custody. Unfortunately, not all countries require child support payments. On top of which, the countries that do require child support frequently don’t keep track of their residents. They frequently don’t have a valid address on file.

The difference in living costs between countries doesn’t help matters. Parents, when they move from Country A to the United States or the United States to Country B, frequently can’t afford the child support payments they’ve been ordered to pay.

To combat these problems, there was a Convention signed at The Hague to create a comprehensive system of cooperation and organization among child support collection agencies. The new agreement is expected to make everything easier.

If you are having difficulties collecting child support payments from a parent that is living outside of the United States, contact the Denton divorce lawyers of Alexander & Associates at 972-420-6560 to discuss the particulars of your case.