What to Do When Your Ex Won't (or Can't) Pay Child Support

Getty Images Andi Kimbrough would have an easier time budgeting if her ex-husband was paying the child support he owes her. Currently, his tab is $11,000, which she doesn't expect to be repaid soon. Her ex is unemployed, and his location is unknown. In fact, there's a warrant out for his arrest. Kimbrough, 43, is gainfully employed at a local television network in Dallas/Fort Worth and is married to a service director for a car dealership. So she is part of a two-income household, which helps offset the financial challenges of not receiving regular child support for her 14-year-old and 10-year-old sons. Still, it isn't easy. Her household is sending out child support money as well. Kimbrough's husband has three children of his own: two sons, ages 18 and 15, and an eight-year-old daughter. His ex-wife is trying to get her amount of child support increased. Right now, Kimbrough says, they're paying somewhere between $500 and $600 a month in child support. "We struggle to pay it already and feel like there is no recourse," Kimbrough says. Those child support issues are one of the main reasons the couple has made a big decision regarding their lifestyle going forward. "We're actually moving out of our house and into an apartment," she says. It would help if Kimbrough's ex-husband paid his child support. It's $500 a month, almost the amount her husband sends to his ex-wife. Recent national numbers on unpaid child support are hard to come by, but $108 billion in back payments was owed to parents with custody of children in 2009, according to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement. Unfortunately, if your ex-partner is determined not to pay child support or has few assets and can't pay, there isn't much one can do. A deadbeat or broke parent can be thrown in jail for not paying child support, but garnishing prison wages won't get you very far. Still, if you are owed child support, here are some strategies that are worth employing. Keep the other parent involved. If you have primary custody and your ex isn't paying child support, it may be tempting to punish the other parent and prevent him (usually, it's him, but not always) from seeing your child. That's not a good move, says Sheri Atwood, founder of SupportPay.com, an automated child-support payment platform. (It's free, unless you use premium services such as sending money to a third party, in which case it's $19.99 a month.) "A lot of parents feel if you're not going to pay, you're not going to be involved in their life, but it works against you," Atwood says. "By keeping them involved in your children's day-to-day activities and the things going on, that helps them stay invested in your children, and if they can't pay you today, at least they're more likely, when they can afford it, to pay." Shel Harrington, a family law attorney and an adjunct professor teaching family law at the Oklahoma City University School of Law, seconds that. "Child support issues and visitation issues are independent of each other," Harrington says. She adds that it isn't right for a child to not see a parent because that parent isn't paying child support, and "on the flip side, a parent should not stop paying child support because the other parent is denying them visitation," Harrington says. And either parent in this situation could find themselves in legal hot water, Harrington says, even if they feel their reasons are sound for withholding money or visitation rights. Don't budget for your child support. That is, if your ex isn't dependable. "Never build it into your budget," Kimbrough advises. "Keep it completely separate, and that way if it stops, it doesn't change your day. If it's there, you can let it build up for the necessities that you need for your children." Don't run to your lawyer. That is, it shouldn't be your first instinct, Atwood says. Talking things out -- and picking your battles -- should be. Atwood says she knows of one customer who spent more than $12,000 in attorney fees, fighting with an ex about who would pay for a $100 pair of glasses for their child. "He said to me, 'I know this is dumb,'" Atwood says. But, of course, emotion often trumps intellect in post-divorce universe. If your ex can't pay you everything, ask him to pay some. Not that you want to let him off the hook, but something is better than nothing. And if you ex is truly broke, it may be better for everyone if he or she gets the child support reduced (it can always be raised if he or she gets a better job). And it's in your ex's best interest to get things straightened out with the court right away. "All states have anti-retroactive modification laws," says Ron Lieberman, a family law attorney in Haddonfield, N.J. "Meaning that a modification of child support can't be made retroactive beyond the date of the filing of a motion in court ... so the payer has every incentive to seek immediate court action instead of ignoring his or her payment situation." When to get the courts involved. If your ex isn't making any effort to pay, it's usually after six months when a county sheriff will begin enforcing child support, assuming the support is currently being paid through wage execution or the probation department, Lieberman says. If child support is not being paid through those two ways, you can still file a motion in court for enforcement, Lieberman says. The filing fee in New Jersey is $30, he says, adding: "In extreme cases, a parent can ask for the waiver of the filing fee." Then, assuming an ex isn't willing to pay child support, law enforcement has methods to try and reason with the parent, Lieberman says, including suspending his or her professional license. The courts can take away the deadbeat parent's driver's license, grab any tax refunds, garnish wages and, yes, throw the person in jail. That still may not convince the parent, says Bruce Ailion, an associate broker with Re/Max in Atlanta and father of three who has been trying to get child support for more than a decade and can attest to how difficult it is. His ex-wife, who owned a real-estate brokerage company with him when they divorced in 2002, owes around $80,000 in child support, he says. She has wound up in jail numerous times, and what Ailion finds amazing is that he can afford to pay for legal representation to collect his child support income -- and has still come up empty.

Nasdaq rockets 200% from ‘09 bear market low

The Nasdaq may be best known for its big celebrity members, such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, but it's the lesser-known stocks in the index that are the biggest helpers to a 200% gain the past 4½ years.

Thanks to Tuesday's powerful rally in tech stocks, which lifted the Nasdaq composite 46.50 points, 1.2%, to 3,817.98, the index is up 200% from its March 9, 2009, bear market low.

Seeing stocks double (with 100% gains) is head-turning enough, so to see them triple like this is a rally for the history books.

And making the entrance to the "200% club" that much sweeter, the Nasdaq is the first of the big three U.S. market measures, including the Standard & Poor's 500 and Dow Jones industrial average, to triple from its low. The Dow and S&P 500 are up 132% and 150%, respectively, during the same period.

"The Nasdaq happens to be in the sweet spot in the market," says Ken Winans of Winans Investments. "It's astounding."

In yet another interesting twist, despite its reputation for being home of the giants of technology, the start-ups haven't been the biggest drivers of the Nasdaq's ascent. It's actually been other forces at work, including:

• Strength from small and midsize companies. Companies with market values of $15 billion or less accounted for 29 of the 30 stocks with the best gains from the 2009 low. And half of the top Nasdaq composite performers have current market values of less than $1 billion. These companies benefited from a number of forces, says Jack Ablin of BMO Private Bank, including their focus on the U.S. economy. The U.S. economy has been healthier than other spots around the world, giving small and midsize companies that do most of their business in the U.S. an edge, he says.

• Mega gains from health care and retail stocks. While the Nasdaq is known for its tech darlings, two sectors not known for huge gains were the true winners, Winans says. Two of the best stocks in the Nasdaq were drug development companies, Pharmacyclics and ! Jazz Pharmaceuticals, which gained more than 15,000% each. And Nasdaq's stable of retailers were also big winners, including Avis Budget, up 7,300%, yoga wear maker Lululemon Athletica, up 3,200%, and discounter Tuesday Morning, up 2,800%. Even big retailers, such as Costco, have stunning gains of 200%. And online retail leaders Amazon.com and Priceline were also huge winners, Winans says, rising 427% and 1,200%, respectively.

• New entrants added to the Nasdaq. Given that many young companies list on Nasdaq, it's to be expected that the index morphs considerably over time. And lately, new entrants have been major contributors to gains. Social media companies, including Facebook and LinkedIn, have generated massive gains recently, rising 89% and 117% this year respectively. Another online-product and store-review site, Yelp, is up 274% this year.

Given that the entire market has rallied so strongly since 2009, it's to be expected that riskier, smaller companies would post larger gains, Winans says.

Investors, though, hope that larger companies, including those that export outside the U.S., will become bigger participants. "It's really paid off to be small and midsized companies concentrated at home," Ablin says. "But it's starting to get tired."