Termination of CS withholding; insurance and bankruptcy
in our decree and custody order, I am the non-custodial parent, ordered to pay CS. XH, the custodial parent, was ordered to provide medical insurance for our son. The decree states that in the event he was unable to provide insurance coverage, that if available through my employer, I could provide coverage for my son and XH would have to reimburse me for premium cost. Within in a month or so of our divorce being final XH quit his job and dropped insurance. When I learned of this I added my son to my insurance at work and began sending XH invoices via certified mail. He reimbursed me for the first two months, but none there after and even refused acceptance of the certified letters. Eventually I received a notice that XH had filed for bankruptcy and was asking the court to discharge the insurance premiums that I had been billing him.....on a side note he also filed for the fees he still owed his divorce lawyer to be discharged as well.
My understanding is that child support cannot be discharged by bankruptcy, and I filed the appropriate form with the bankruptcy court to contest the owed insurance premium from being discharged, claiming this fell under support of a child. Apparently the situation was somewhat unusual since I was the non-custodial parent claiming unpaid 'support for a child'. I went to the meeting of the debtors, and was the only debtor that attended. The Court representative claimed he didn't know whether in the case of my claim that what was owed me qualified as child support thus not dischargeable. He told me to get a lawyer. That would have cost me more then what was owed to me, so there it ended. I latter received a letter from the bankruptcy court saying my claim against XH had been discharged. I continued covering my son for another 1 1/2 years.
What is your opinion on this? Do you think medical insurance coverage requirements in a decree fall under support of a child? Right or wrong for it to be discharged by bankruptcy even if it is payable from the custodial parent to the non-custodial parent?
My son just turned 18 and is graduating from high school. I have to file a request with the court to terminate CS withholding and am wondering if the three years of insurance that XH was supposed to reimburse me for can be filed as excess CS paid and be ordered by the court to be reimbursed to me....
You can try that
You could try that but it may be too late. My DH is custodial and the BM pays him child support along with insurance coverage on the kids. It is my understanding that her total child support factor includes insurance and if she were to quit and not have insurance available anymore then it would factor into the total child support payment and her overall pmt would increase.
Your situation should have been the opposite. When he quit his job and you picked up the insurance, your overall child support pmt should have decreased. I'd try and file something - it's worth a shot. Sounds like the problem will be collecting from your ex. Good luck.
File contempt
I say it's child support, because the cost of insurance does factor into the amount. That was his portion of the CS. Just because one parent pays the other, that doesn't mean that only that parent is financially responsible for the child. I think you could go about this a couple of different ways. You could file contempt charges, because he is actually in contempt of a court order that requires him to reimburse you. You could probably do this fairly easily enough per se. Your local courthouse should be able to get you the forms, if they are not available online. You might not get your money back, but he can pay you with jail time, if he'd prefer.
♥ Georgia ♥
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