Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Update and question re: FRO

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Update and question re: FRO

    Hi everyone,

    So a few months have passed now since the new agreement was signed. Everything is very black and white in this new document, especially amounts ex must pay in monthly child support and daycare costs. For the year during which litigation was occurring (2017) he was on time with payments for the first time since separation. The new deal was inked in December 2017. He paid January’s child support at the newly updated (and reduced) rate and now has not paid a dime since.

    Nothing for support and nothing for daycare.

    I have been trying to contact FRO and assume that at some point this week they’ll get back to me. I wondered if anyone has experience with arrears and FRO - when will they allow you to apply to have wages garnisheed?
    Is there a certain amount someone can wrack up in arrears before this is a possibility?
    I budget according to his support and this is putting a real burden on me, and by default my family.
    FRO doesn’t govern the daycare portion since that is a fluctuating amount every year. What would be my recourse there - take him to family court if it becomes months of this?

    As an aside, my speculation is that he and his girlfriend are so high conflict that they actually require fighting and conflict to be occurring. I think it’s a game to make me beg for the money. My husband thinks I should not say anything as the angry emails are what we think he wants. But at the same time, this is completely wrong and affecting his children.
    If he reached a certain point in arrears that I could just have it withdrawn and not worry about him controlling when I get it, I also think it may solve some problems.
    Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  • #2
    File the agreement with FRO. You will file what is owing when you do. He can worry about paying them and getting garnished.

    Comment


    • #3
      Sorry I guess I didn’t mention that it IS already filed with FRO. It has been for years. This is why I don’t understand his game. He knows they will have my back (eventually....hopefully).


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

      Comment


      • #4
        I will try to detail my experience with FRO.

        The first question / assumption is that you indeed have a court order, which is to be enforced with FRO. FRO can only enforce court orders, they will not enforce anything else. If you and your ex consent, you can withdraw from FRO (not sure I would recommend it though).

        As a side note, I am also writing you from the perspective of a support payor.

        Based on what I read, it can take some time for FRO to get setup. Once it is setup, things should go smoothly. At this time, if you have an "Enforced" court order, you should only deal directly with FRO. The same applies to the support payor. The theory here is that FRO "should" reduce conflict. It's FRO's judgement to accept payments from your EX or they may opt to garnish your ex's wages. That is their call and should not affect you. I'm not 100% sure that I would call them arrears yet since you are just waiting for FRO to pay you. Once FRO is involved, you must pay via FRO, furthermore FRO will actually apply sanctions to a payor for paying the receipient directly.

        For daycare, you can submit the costs to FRO, but you will have to provide them with a sworn affidavit with the receipt. If your court order is clear, then they will enforce it.

        In my case, FRO elected to garnish my wages despite me paying them in time. It really doesn't affect me either way so whatever. It's been somewhat helpful however since I don't have to communicate with my ex about money. If there is an issue, I have an impartial 3rd party to deal with instead. In my case, that's not a bad thing. Hopefully that's better for you as well.

        I know it sucks waiting for them, but hopefully it will sort it's way quickly and not cause too much financial burden. I'm all for trying to reduce conflict, although I know all too well how some people require conflict in their lives.

        Good luck

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Gilligan View Post
          I will try to detail my experience with FRO.



          The first question / assumption is that you indeed have a court order, which is to be enforced with FRO. FRO can only enforce court orders, they will not enforce anything else. If you and your ex consent, you can withdraw from FRO (not sure I would recommend it though).



          As a side note, I am also writing you from the perspective of a support payor.



          Based on what I read, it can take some time for FRO to get setup. Once it is setup, things should go smoothly. At this time, if you have an "Enforced" court order, you should only deal directly with FRO. The same applies to the support payor. The theory here is that FRO "should" reduce conflict. It's FRO's judgement to accept payments from your EX or they may opt to garnish your ex's wages. That is their call and should not affect you. I'm not 100% sure that I would call them arrears yet since you are just waiting for FRO to pay you. Once FRO is involved, you must pay via FRO, furthermore FRO will actually apply sanctions to a payor for paying the receipient directly.



          For daycare, you can submit the costs to FRO, but you will have to provide them with a sworn affidavit with the receipt. If your court order is clear, then they will enforce it.



          In my case, FRO elected to garnish my wages despite me paying them in time. It really doesn't affect me either way so whatever. It's been somewhat helpful however since I don't have to communicate with my ex about money. If there is an issue, I have an impartial 3rd party to deal with instead. In my case, that's not a bad thing. Hopefully that's better for you as well.



          I know it sucks waiting for them, but hopefully it will sort it's way quickly and not cause too much financial burden. I'm all for trying to reduce conflict, although I know all too well how some people require conflict in their lives.



          Good luck


          Sorry. I was really not clear in my original post. FRO WAS updated with the new agreement (there is no court order). They did issue the new amount to me in January. Then he did not pay for February and now March so FRO could not issue me any money as it wasn’t there. I’ve already checked to see through the automated system if he has made payments I’m simply waiting for. He has not.
          He also has not paid a cent in daycare even though our agreement states that he must pay this on a certain day each month by way of e-transfer to me. It even states that the first daycare payment is to commence in January 2018, yet it did not. So this is now 3 months owing of daycare. All totalled it’s approaching $3000 he owes since the new agreement was signed. My question is, if it reaches a certain point or at any point can I request that it just be garnished? I don’t want to be fighting with him or waiting two months or more as I depend on this in my budget.
          I wish my ex realized, as you do, that paying monthly and on time is important and would reduce conflict and communication about money.


          Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

          Comment


          • #6
            I'm really surprised that FRO hasn't started garnishing. They have a lot of power for enforcement and in my case, they quickly went with that. I would focus on your case contact @ FRO. I've had a few issues with the first person I was dealing with, he unfortunately not at all well informed. You can try escalating the issue, but I'm not sure if that will help or not.

            Although not a great solution, if you get nowhere with FRO, I think you're left with having to ask the courts for an enforcement order for the arrears. This doesn't solve your pressing issues (i.e. sharing in the costs), but your ex has little to stand on for not paying his portion. Hopefully this will also include costs.

            Good luck

            Comment


            • #7
              Unfortunately they don’t enforce until he reaches $3000 is my understanding. Definitely try talking to your caseworker. Try to call first thing in the morning. They tend to answer calls when they first open at 8:30.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by rockscan View Post
                Unfortunately they don’t enforce until he reaches $3000 is my understanding. Definitely try talking to your caseworker. Try to call first thing in the morning. They tend to answer calls when they first open at 8:30.


                I think I had heard this too about the $3000 mark. I will hopefully speak to someone tomorrow. Maybe they can look into past records and see that this has been a pattern before and agree to garnish wages. It really sucks to not know if you’re receiving your support and daycare payments or not. Obviously he was only on his best behaviour when he thought it would matter for court.


                Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

                Comment


                • #9
                  Oh Ange, I am so sorry to hear this. I thought it was all over for you and finally had some relief to put this behind you.

                  I can see where especially the daycare bill would throw any family over the financial deep-end. My ex is refusing to pay too.

                  After being on this site for a few months now, I am beginning to think there is some merit to what some are saying about conflict with the new partner. I like to think the best of people, but after I received the Monster Mom reply, I am rethinking it could be his partner that is fueling this fire.

                  I think you should listen to your husbands advice and not fuel the fire. This may have to be resolved by a Judge. My lawyer told me that some litigants just need to hear it from a Judge, and emails, and lawyers letter dont work.

                  Hopefully this shouldn't be to difficult for you to do yourself and self rep, to save $$$. Try and get the daycare on the order so FRO can deal with that too.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I don’t have very much respect for FRO. They rarely if ever call you back. Even if the payer sends the money two weeks in advance FRO still processes the money so the payee will receive it after the due date specified on the court order. Here are several things I’ve learned about FRO:
                    - high burnout rate so agents are constantly replaced
                    - rarely if ever return phone calls
                    - you have to be on them like a fly on manure or they will take no action at all against the payer no matter how late or how much in arrears they are
                    - they don’t consider the payer late for purposes of calculating late interest due on arrears until 32 days past the payment due date
                    - once payer is 32 days late they still don’t care and will make a phone call to the payer if you pester them enough
                    - it’s up to you to do the PI work and find out where your ex is working, living or hiding money as they are too lazy to do it themselves and they don’t really care
                    - sicking the Ontario Ombudsman on them gets results. They don’t like it and it forces them to return your calls and take some sort of action.
                    - if you want to take FRO to court they make it difficult, even for other lawyers because they won’t tell you who their lawyer is

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Could be dealing with them is the lessor of 2 evils. The ex or FRO?

                      In my high conflict case, I would prefer the FRO. But I am not even there yet, still working on trying to get a court order for child support So I highly value the advice of others who have dealt with them.

                      Stillbreathing do you think you would have been better off trying to collect on your own? Do you regret involving them?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        FRO us supposed to have more ways to collect than a person would on their own. One of the problems is that they are very very very slow to implement any of them. Just like court, they take way to much time to take any action. That’s why it an be extremely helpful to contact the Ombudsman to light a fire under their rear end. Glad I contacted the Ombudsman because now FRO are behaving themselves better and for the most part we have things settled.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by rockscan View Post
                          Unfortunately they don’t enforce until he reaches $3000 is my understanding. Definitely try talking to your caseworker. Try to call first thing in the morning. They tend to answer calls when they first open at 8:30.
                          The FRO will not enforce action unless payor has been behind payment for (I believe) 3 months or $3,000 dollars. My ex has been behind consistently for close to 4 years, and only now they are beginning "aggressive" collection methods.

                          I would suggest contacting your FRO caseworker, on a regular basis. The more noise you make, the more they respond. If you're not getting any response, have your local MPP intervene on your behalf. The benefit you have is that your ex is employed and not self-employed.

                          If your agreement/order has a late payment interest, start filing the interest rate. That was a HUGE motivator for my ex, once he realized his interest payments were 2.5X what he pays in child support.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Definitely call the ombuds office too. The fact that they get a large volume of calls on FRO is a motivator to the government to add staff and address the issues. Its not a solution but it gets the gears going.

                            As their statement says “good parents pay” and there are thousands of good parents. Unfortunately there are a lot of “bad” parents who think punishing their ex’s is a great idea. Take note of this for future litigation with your ex.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by kate331 View Post
                              Could be dealing with them is the lessor of 2 evils. The ex or FRO?

                              In my high conflict case, I would prefer the FRO. But I am not even there yet, still working on trying to get a court order for child support So I highly value the advice of others who have dealt with them.

                              Stillbreathing do you think you would have been better off trying to collect on your own? Do you regret involving them?
                              Even with all the issues with FRO, I don't regret it. My ex is all about controlling me by using leverage. If I asked for a travel consent, he'll invite for an arbitration of summer vacation BEFORE he signs the consent letter, never mind one is not contingent on the other, and he's in contempt by refusing to sign the letter. If I asked for a change in weekend to attend an event, it becomes let's play "Spin the Wheel" for a host of issues. Thankfully, we have a clause that says I can cancel a weekend as long as I offer up a weekend of mine. But that doesn't mean I won't get a call from the Police or CAS on some made up allegation.

                              So, having FRO involved with CS is helpful, as they do have more means to enforce than me.

                              Comment

                              Our Divorce Forums
                              Forums dedicated to helping people all across Canada get through the separation and divorce process, with discussions about legal issues, parenting issues, financial issues and more.
                              Working...
                              X