Is there not a cap on what they can take?

[knackered]

The amount of money that my ex and her lawyer want from me is more than I make in one pay cheque....are they legally allowed to do this? Is there not a percentage they would have to stay at?

I know when she pulled the FRO scam on me (got them to garnish my wages, after I had personally gave her money) FRO was only allowed to take half my paycheque.

But as it stands now they want just over $1200 a month from me---my one pay cheque every two weeks is under that amount.

[hadenough]

So you do have a Court Order? And if so, what are the terms of it? What do you mean when you say that your ex and her lawyer "want from you?" Is FRO currently involved or not involved?

[dajackal]

FRO scam? Family Responsibility Office only guarnish wages when you don't meet your responsibilities. lol.

sounds like you owe money and there isn't much you can do about it. get caught up to date and pay support. Now that it's on file with FRO... do not give her any money period.You pay FRO and they pay her.

She and her lawyer cannot get any money from you. they must go to court and get a court order. i suggest you get a lawyer yourself or at least go to mediation or what ever court when your are served papers.

The court has little compasion on people who are in arrears. they see this as nothing more than hardship to the mother/father and child/children and they don't have sympathy for you. half your pay untill the arrears are caught up sounds right. good luck and pay support.
ps. I paid support for 16yrs and never had my pay guarnished. I was always up to date.

[kat41]

I posted about my experience with Fro before. Just to recap I have joint custody support order issued and when FRO sent me info I owed several months which I immewdiately paid, they called it arrears but as I was told by my lawyer and FRO I could not commence payment until they contacted me. It was explained that the standard method of collection is thru garnish directly from employer. I was on LTD sent chqs which were returned as I have to send each month they no longer accept post dated. They went so far as to say they were notifying her Majesty the Queen which I found out is the Canadian government as they kept refering to arrears, which never existed. I called numerous times and was told to disregard the ongoing letters as they would eventually stop and that my acct was fine. After 1.5 months I requested a letter stating no arrears in case needed for future. I received this along with letter stating I would not receive any other notice in my lifetime or it would cost $35. I send chq each month and am going back to work shortly. They do say in many places that if a person is emloyed they garnish as a matter of procedure, I feel this suggests you are delinquent but I guess employers will get used to it as it is the standard thing now. Anyway it DOES NOT mean you are in arrears at all, that is a misconception probably based on past practices.

[knackered]

Originally Posted by dajackal

FRO scam? Family Responsibility Office only guarnish wages when you don't meet your responsibilities. lol.

sounds like you owe money and there isn't much you can do about it. get caught up to date and pay support. Now that it's on file with FRO... do not give her any money period.You pay FRO and they pay her.

She and her lawyer cannot get any money from you. they must go to court and get a court order. i suggest you get a lawyer yourself or at least go to mediation or what ever court when your are served papers.

The court has little compasion on people who are in arrears. they see this as nothing more than hardship to the mother/father and child/children and they don't have sympathy for you. half your pay untill the arrears are caught up sounds right. good luck and pay support.
ps. I paid support for 16yrs and never had my pay guarnished. I was always up to date.

I have proof of $1700 in cheques that I gave her. (I did give her more in cash--my fault, can't prove that, stupid on my part!)
I sent the cheques to FRO---they sent her a letter about it and haven't received a response from her so far.
FRO said if she agrees with the cheques, that they have to reimburse me. If she disagress with it, I have to continue dealing with it through our lawyers. If she just continues to not respond to FRO--they will send me a letter for me to use in court, stating she is uncooperative or something along that.

[knackered]

There is a separation agreement in place that she wrote in 2008.

It states that I am to give her $400 per month child support, there are no section 7 expenses and when they are to arise, she is to notify me, provide me with receipt, in which I have 20 days to pay.

I did get behind on child support at one point, I was unemployed when we separated--I have been struggling financially since before we split.

I owed her $4800. When I got my current decent job and took out some RRSP's, I gave her $2000 $1700 in cheque and the rest cash because she said she really needed cash. (I thought I could trust her---stupid and slap in my face) So at that point, I owed her $2800 and we agreed that I would pay her an extra $100 a month child support until the $2800 was paid back--verbal agreement--again, thought I could trust her, things had been very civil at this time after such a bad separation(false police reports against me/being taken from the house/fighting it in 3 months to get charges dropped)

A week after I gave her the $2000, I received a letter from FRO stating that she had contacted them, saying I owed her $7000!
Fro began garnishing my wages--she got the full $7000 plus ongoing $400. So she got a total of $11,800 from me last year.

She got used to getting that amount from me. When the $7000 was paid back and she started getting the regular $400 again....she all of a sudden told me in June 2011 that she wanted babysitting expenses paid now. I told her "ok, just give me the receipts" She gave no receipts.

Instead in October 2011, she got a lawyer.

Her lawyer sent me a letter requesting my income tax summary's to calculate what I would owe her.

I sent her lawyer a letter back, stating that there was no receipts and according to our agreement, she needed to give me receipts.

They filed to take me to court.

I got a lawyer.

At the consultation with my lawyer, she gave me the impression that I had a case to re-open up--regarding signing over the matrimonial home to her father and me not getting a cent out of it, her not giving me spousal support when she had the police take me out when I was unemployed.

Now my lawyer is basically just telling me to pay them what she wants--they want backpayment babysitting expenses from 2010, backpayment child support from 2011 , current child support and current babysitting---which would equal over 1200 a month---that is more than I make in one pay!

[Pilgrim11]

DON'T ASSUME SOMEONE IS IN ARREARS BECAUSE FRO IS INVOLVED!!!! Thats how we get some of this perception of "dead-beat dad's" that is not accurate.

You do not have to be in arrears to have an enforcement order filed with FRO. It is at the whim of the person filing.

I have been divorced from my wife for a number of years and have 50-50 custody of the children but I was court ordered to pay a differential payment because I earned more than my ex. This was never an issue.

At settlement time, we reached an agreement where my montly payment would be made directly to my ex by means of debit payment at the first of each month directly from my bank acct into her bank acct. This went on without a hitch for 3 years until I had a disagreement with her and she applied to FRO to have my wages garnisheed out of spite in an effort to embarass me.

The first I heard of this was when FRO sent me a letter telling me my wages were garnisheed. I called and inquired as to why and they told me no reason was needed other than the desire by my ex to have FRO collect. I was not in arrears on any payment.

The funny part is FRO was collecting based on the original court order that was for a lesser amount than my monthly debit payment. My monthly payment was adjusted each year according to income and I asked FRO to take more money from me because of the increase in payments due to income adjustments. They refused saying they could only collect based on the original order and I was not permitted by law to make any payment shortage differentia to my ex. She would have to file for an adjustment. She has never filed for an adjustment and that was 3 years ago. In the meantime, I have put the differential amt in a separate acct waiting for her to file.

[knackered]

Thanks for your experience Pilgirm11, you are right on everything you said.
We did not have FRO involved from the start, and yes I did fall behind--but I always paid her as soon as I could. She went behind my back after receiving a lump sum from me and lied saying I had never ever paid her--and she has got away with it so far.

Today, where I live, the courts automatically send the order to FRO now, and you have to both sign a withdrawl to get them not involved.

[dajackal]

Call Fro and try to have the payments reduced for whatever is in arrears. They do have a voluntary repayment program. Shy of you setting it up. They are legally allowed to deduct 50% (I think). If that doesn't work, you'll have to file a financial hardship motion with the court. And good luck with that. They don't care how much your left with. Remember .... She has the kid/s.

And support deduction orders may be comon practice now. I never had one.

Good luck none the less, see your kids as often as u can and keep the
dirt away from them.

[knackered]

Originally Posted by dajackal

Call Fro and try to have the payments reduced for whatever is in arrears. They do have a voluntary repayment program. Shy of you setting it up. They are legally allowed to deduct 50% (I think). If that doesn't work, you'll have to file a financial hardship motion with the court. And good luck with that. They don't care how much your left with. Remember .... She has the kid/s.

And support deduction orders may be comon practice now. I never had one.

Good luck none the less, see your kids as often as u can and keep the
dirt away from them.

At the moment FRO only takes the current ordered amount of $400 from me. They should be setting it up with FRO to take the increase that she wants, that amount will now become $618

It's the babysitting fiasco, I am concerned about. The whole reason we have lawyers, and are in this mess right now is because she refused to give me any babysitting receipts--instead of giving me receipts as per our separation agreement when she requested babysitting expenses, she just got a lawyer and began fighting with no receipts.

I believe her and the babysitter were always doing it under the table. My ex claimed the expenses on her end/having no receipts--doesn't need them unless the government asks for them--she has two kids, works full-time--the government most likely will never question her on it.
The babysitter never gave her receipts in the past--which makes me believe the babysitter wasn't claiming it as income--which makes their babysitting arrangement illegal, and I will not participate in it!

She finally gave me a receipt for 2011 (7 months after I asked, and once the lawyers were involved) So I believe, getting the lawyers involved, has resulted in her and the babysitter deciding to do things legal this year--the babysitter told me she did give her the receipt this year. (Or her and the babysitter are still scamming--babysitter can easily give her a receipt for me and still not claim it on her end)

They admit that they have no 2010 receipt. But they expect me to pay for it.

They also want me to just give my ex whatever calculations she comes up with every month and then not get a receipt from her until the end of the year. (Why would I do this with the past receipt issues!!!)

My ex works the same shift 7 days a week---but all the weeks are calculated at a different price for babysitting.

I don't think they plan on putting the babysitting through FRO.

Can I request that it goes through FRO? and instead of having to give her whatever amount she tells me--a different amount eveyr month, we instead come up with an agreed set amount monthly to give her?

I would be more comfortable with all money matters between us going through FRO (That way she can't say lie anymore, saying I have never paid her anything!)

I made a proposal saying that I would suck it up and give her the 2010 even though she has no receipts, and give her everything she wants over a 7 year period...it will still affect me financially, but there is no way that I can pay all this to her in the 6 months that they want it.