It is possible to arrange child maintenance payments through the court. This is done, in England and Wales, by way of a ‘consent order.’ A consent order is an official ruing of the court that orders the non-resident parent to pay an agreed amount of child support to the resident parent. If you and your ex partner cannot agree on the amount that should be paid, a consent order is not the right option for you.

Consent orders for child support payments are almost always ordered at the same time as the parties are in court for another reason, e.g. a divorce or in ancillary relief proceedings. If you are not eligible for legal aid, you will have to pay for the consent order yourself (court fees, solicitors fees etc.) It is also important to note that if you are normally eligible for legal aid, you will not be covered for a consent order if you are only going to court to deal with child maintenance issues.

What Happens If The Order Is Breached?

If the non-resident parent does not comply with the order of the court, the court can then enforce payment against them. If you then wish to go to the CSA/CMS to obtain child maintenance payments, you cannot do this until the order has been in force for at least twelve months.

The Court’s Powers of Enforcement

Much like the powers of the CSA/CMS, the court can require that deductions are made from the non-resident parent’s earnings at source. It is also possible to put a charge on the non-resident parent’s property, if they own it. Although this is not a quick-fix in that you will not get your money immediately, it means that you will obtain the money you are owed on the sale of the property if there is enough equity left after mortgage and any other charges are paid off. If your ex-partner has a lot of charges against his or her property, you may be quite a long way down the list and may not receive anything when it is sold. If someone owes your ex-partner money, you can apply to the court to obtain a ‘third party debt order’, which is basically an order of the court requiring the money to be paid to you rather than to your ex-partner. You can do this with money owed to your ex by banks, companies and private individuals. The facility for an overdraft does not count, in this regard, and nor does money that is contained within a joint account.

Injunction

If your ex is caught trying to move money between accounts or hiding details of his or her finances, you can also ask the court to intervene by obtaining a ‘freezing injunction.’ This stops the assets being moved around, and is especially useful if your ex-partner is trying to take money out of the country.

Prison For Non-Payment of Child Support

A last resort in relation to child maintenance payments is that you can apply to the court to have your ex-partner sent to prison. The application that you make is called a ‘Request for Judgment Summons’, which summons your ex to court. If your ex does not show up, the court may issue a warrant for their immediate arrest, or a ‘suspended committal order’, which in effect gives them another chance to show up before a warrant is issued.

The judge can either: order that the payments are made by instalments; or, if satisfied that your ex has the means to pay but is wilfully refusing to pay, can send him or her to prison for a period of up to six weeks.