When Alabama residents are given orders to follow, many do their best to comply. This is particularly important when the order is coming down from a court which has the power to impose serious penalties on a person for failing to comply with the court order.

One area where individuals find themselves in the situation of having to comply with a court order is in relation to child support orders. If the parent exhibits a failure to pay child support, there can be serious consequences.

Of course, the first step in the process is knowing what the court’s order actually says. Some orders may provide for the manner of child support payments, such as withholding the parent’s wages. The order may also spell out the penalties that may occur for delinquent payments. Individuals then must comply with these court orders.

Others may need to comply as well, like the parent’s employer. For instance, one man recently sued his employer after he claimed the employer withheld child support payments from the man’s income, but then failed to turn those payments over to the Bureau for Child Support Enforcement. As a result, the man was accused of being delinquent in his child support payments, in addition to not receiving the wages he was due for his employment.

While the case above is rare, it illustrates how important it is to comply with the court’s child support order, both from the perspective of the parent and the parent’s employer. If the parent is found to be in noncompliance with the order, other property might be seized to satisfy the payments, or the person could even be held in contempt of court, which carries additional penalties up to and including jail time. Therefore, individuals should work with a qualified attorney to determine not only what should go into the court order from the outset, but how to comply with the order once it is in place.

Source: The West Virginia Record, “Man says child support payments misappropriated,” Kyla Asbury, Sept. 17, 2013