When a child support payment is late, it’s known as a delinquent payment. A delinquent payment can be extremely hard for the recipient to deal with. They may rely on the payment to buy their child clothing or school lunches. Being late isn’t an option.
Failing to pay child support can lead to serious consequences. You could lose your license, have your wages garnished or worse. Additionally, being late with child support likely means that you’ll pay interest and fines, which adds up to more than you’d pay originally.
Less-often discussed consequences of late child support
Being late with or failing to pay child support can lead to a dismissal from military service. Additionally, in some extreme cases, failing to pay can result in imprisonment, where those who do not pay remain. Sadly, most people who end up imprisoned do not have options for work in prison, so they’re still unlikely to make payments to the custodial parent.
What can you do to guarantee your payments are made on time?
It’s a good idea to have the payments automatically withdrawn from your bank account each month. You should make sure that you set up the date for a day when you receive a paycheck or when you can guarantee that money will be in the account.
Failing to pay child support or being late with support makes you look bad in the eyes of the court, so it’s important to do all you can to make sure you pay support on time and in full each month that you’re responsible for it.
