Court may split child support payments

Question: My daughter's father, whom I never married, owes about $60,000 in back child support. My daughter is turning 18 next month and is attending college; therefore, the father will have to continue to pay child support until she reaches the age of 23, so long as she goes to college full time.

How do I go about getting the back child support? I really need the money to help pay for my daughter's college tuition and fees, which amounted to about $15,000 this year. She didn't get any help from FAFSA, as they needed her stepfather's tax return -- which I didn't have because he's deployed to Iraq. So now I am in debt with this loan I took out to help pay for my daughter's tuition and fees. My daughter's father also has two other children from a previous marriage; therefore, he said even if he sends more for my daughter to help with her college tuition, the child support enforcement agency in the state he resides in (California) divides it among his children whenever he pays his monthly payments, so he can't really send more to my child and then less to his other children. My daughter called him asking for money to help pay for her books, so last week he directly deposited $500 into my daughter's bank account because he said that if he was to send it through child support, they will then probably divide it. Is that true?

Answer: From Heather Brown, Legal Aid staff attorney: You can enforce child support either by filing a motion in the Family Court or by applying for services with the Child Support Enforcement Agency. CSEA can be reached statewide at (888) 317-9081. CSEA has a number of enforcement measures they can take, including but not limited to suspending driver's licenses, taking state and/or federal tax refunds, getting a lien on any property that he has or attaching money in any bank accounts that he has. There could be special considerations if the father is in the military. And it is true that if a parent has more than one child support obligation, any payments made will be divided equally among the orders.