If you are a dad and work hard to pay your bills, spend time with your kids, and pay your child support, it can become overwhelming if you fall behind on the support payments. Your ex-wife has the right to take you to court to collect the payments you owe, but she also has the ability to forgive the arrearage too. If you are behind on your payments and feel like you will never get caught up, you could look into the available options for getting the arrears waived.

Courts will not waive rights just because you ask

The first thing to understand about this is that you cannot simply petition the court to waive the child support arrears you have accumulated. This is not how the process works, and it will not do you any good trying to achieve your goal through this method.

Courts will waive rights if custodial parent agrees

The only effective method available for getting your child support arrears waived is convincing your ex-wife to waive them. In some cases, this might not be a hard task, but there are times when it can be impossible. The results of this typically depend on several factors, but the main factor is what your ex-wife thinks about the situation.

If your ex is fully capable of supporting the children on her own, or if she is remarried and has plenty of income from her new husband, she might willingly agree to waive the back support. She might also agree to do this if you are on good terms, and if she knows you are working as hard as you can to support and love your children.

If your ex will not agree to your request, for any reason, you may be stuck paying off all the arrears you owe.

How to get the arrears waived if she agrees to it

In a case where the ex-wife agrees to waive the arrears, there will be a process you must complete in order for this to take place. The main step is filling out a petition to the court requesting that they waive the support. Both you and your ex may need to attend a hearing for this, and the judge will still get to decide whether to agree to it or not, but the judge will be more likely to agree to it if your ex agrees with you.

If you are struggling to keep up with your child support payments, you may want to talk to a lawyer, like Lois Iannone Attorney at Law, that handles child support cases to find out what you can do.

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