Deadbeat dad flees to Philippines leaving four kids without support

Unfortunately, both parents refusing to act in the best interests of their children is a much too common theme.

The Courts often contribute more to the problem.
 
I ran their details through a support calculator. The CS is for 4 children; the judge didn't consider the 19 year old capable of working. I guess being a drug addict keeps you a child of the family.

The article makes much of the 11 year old's cancer. It aches me to say this, but the child is in remission and has been testing regular and now without cancer. This shouldn't be relevent.

The mum get's a 1.2 million dollar house, with a separate apartment that rents for $2000 per month. The spousal support award is higher than the calculator if she earned $0.

According to the calculator the spousal should be nil, if she is just considered to have the income from renting the apartment, not to mention that she should be capable of working. At $0 income, the high end of support shows $500 per month, not the $1500 per month awarded by the judge.

The father earned $100k per year, which is about $5000 a month after taxes. The support award was for $4000 per month, leaving him $1000 per month to live on.

The mom gets $2500 per month from the Ont Government to help with the children's disabilities. She was awarded $4000 in support from the father, the apartment rents for $2000 per month. There should be around $8-900 per month CCTB that isn't mentioned in the article. That's $112k per year, most of it tax free. I recognize that most of that government supplements and CS, but it hardly justfies a ridiculous spousal support award.

She claims in the article that she "got nothing" in equalization, ignoring the $600,000 equity in the home. They were about to settle in the courthouse before the trial, but she backed out. The judge's award, on the surface, is ridiculous, yet she was awarded costs.

Without reading the decision, it's hard to fault the father here. The Star article goes out of it's way to paint a sympathetic picture of the mother, but gives no reasons for a decision for spousal that seems unprecidented.

I usually am really down on "deadbeats" but the father has a point. If he was paying the table amount of CS on his current income in the Phillppenes I'd probably fully support him.
 
Well written Mess! My partner and I were just discussing the article and came to the same points as you did. Shame that most people reading the article would know nothing about the "intricacies" of divorce settlement, SS/CS calculations and the like, and be strung along by the emotional slant in the article. Total hogwash.

I would love to read the Canlii decision, and see what were the points in consideration that caused the judge to make such a decision.
 
Mess said:
According to the calculator the spousal should be nil, if she is just considered to have the income from renting the apartment, not to mention that she should be capable of working. At $0 income, the high end of support shows $500 per month, not the $1500 per month awarded by the judge.
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What numbers did you run and where?

I typed in 100K/0K and 4 kids to mysupportcalculator.ca and got $2196 CS and SS of $810 to $1,208 per month (with a midpoint of $1,005 per month) for a 22 year marriage.

What I find unfortunate about the story was they they signed off on everything after going to court and he was fine with it all - they agreed to support and equalization.

Then she claimed she did not understand what she agreed to and that her circumstances had changed and their agreement was set aside. People need finality in their lives - with family law your relationship never seems to be over.

He is still a deadbeat though - he doesn't pay spousal is fine with me as that was their original agreement, but he should be paying table CS - there is no excuse for that. Also, leaving the country when you have four kids that need a dad - also inexcusable and I wouldn't give him the time of day.

The mother though:
In subsequent court pleadings, Donna maintains she was “rushed and pressured and did not read” the documents before she signed them. She said she did not understand she was signing away the right to any future spousal support, even if her circumstances changed.

This is a lie I would bet. She went to court, she had a lawyer, she should stick by what she agreed to. If she had, this mess would not have occurred it seems.

Looks like they are both messed up - and family court helped them to cause havoc to their childrens lives.
 
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Actually you're right Bill, those were my numbers on spousal the second time through. 0-$528 is what you get if you give her an income of $24k (the apartment rental or minimum wage, take your pick.) Even so the high end we're getting on $0 is much lower than the awarded amount.

Either she can't afford the marital home, so sell it for 1.2 million and buy something affordable, or rent out the apartment and declare the income.
 
After reading this article, I have difficulty siding with the mother here. She got the home worth $1.2 mill, she gets benefits from the government for her child's disability, she got an apartment built in the home that she can rent for $2000 a month and CS. The SS amount is unfair. Why should this guy have to live on beans and ketchup while the mother cannot even get at least a part time job. She was also part of the deal that produced 4 children. She's got a teaching degree, I'm sure she could find employment that accomodates her children's needs.
 
Access Dad said:
After reading this article, I have difficulty siding with the mother here. She got the home worth $1.2 mill...
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Ummm, what? Why would you state something so misleading?

She got a home worth 1.2 million, with a 600K mortgage, which she had to pay 175K to her ex for equalization.

Let's see 1.2 - 600 - 175 = 425K, of which a portion was lump sum spousal - she was a SAHM to four kids for a long time.

I wonder too if the value of the home is 1.2 million today (everyone especially the Star likes to use big numbers). In 2008, she got the home, probably with the 600K mortgage and the 175K buyout but it was probably worth less than 1 million then.
 
Irregardless of the money, I think it is absolutely wrong that she has 3 of their 4 children in photographs for the publicity/press photos.
The children should be kept out of this, and is helping ensure there will be no possibility of reconciliation between they children and their father because they are being taught to hate their father. It's bad enough with what children (never mind us adults) have to deal with when adjusting to your parents separating, but having them pose with angry faces for the press pictures is not acceptable.
 
May_May said:
Irregardless of the money, I think it is absolutely wrong that she has 3 of their 4 children in photographs for the publicity/press photos.
The children should be kept out of this, and is helping ensure there will be no possibility of reconciliation between they children and their father because they are being taught to hate their father. It's bad enough with what children (never mind us adults) have to deal with when adjusting to your parents separating, but having them pose with angry faces for the press pictures is not acceptable.
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I think they are old enough to know the truth, they are losing their house that presumably they grew up in. As a child of a deadbeat dad myself, the chances of reconciliation are almost nil anyway - with or without a press release.

I think he had the screws put to him in court re: spousal, but to pull a cut and run, abandon his children (1 downs, 1 a cancer survivor) and not even pay his cs? = yup, deadbeat dad.
 
The article is very much reflective of tabloid journalism. It would be helpful to read the actual decision before drawing any key conclusions.

However, based on what is provided, it is clear that the

- article does not drawn any distinction between those who can not "afford to" pay support and those that simply prefer not to and lumps them together as one of the same in its discussion of "deadbeat" dads.

- The mother should simply sell the house and live within her means. Circumstances change and unfortunately most of us can not live the same standard of living after divorce. Taking care of a child with special needs and another one who is recovering from cancer is difficult and one can assume to be a full-time job in itself. If I was her I would have sold the house, paid off the mortgage, bought a smaller house and banked the rest of the money to live or fall back on.

- The father is guilty of abandoning his children. No matter what arrears he owed, he chose to value the quality of his life more than the value of his relationship with his children. How on earth does one repair that?

- The father must have had really (really) bad legal advice. To be hit with retroactive support payments and legal costs? One assumes he still needed to pay his own lawyer before he decided to skip town?

- Why on earth would he get married again? Did this new wife know about his financial obligations and children etc before she sponsored him?
 
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He probably has about 150k from the proceeds of his house. That will go a long way in the Philippines, which may be how he interested his new wife. I'm also sure he remarried so he could have legal status there. To be able to pull it off so quickly after the trial suggests he had this set up as a fallback plan if he lost.
 
Sometimes when your in a very hard position it is very difficult to know what is right and what is wrong. In the article is leads to the fact that the children do not want to see their father, maybe they were alienated from him before this and he thought that he cannot afford what the courts ordered and his ex has alienated his kids against him anyways so its better to start fresh. When you do not have any idea of hope left, and any money left and kids who hate you and an ex who wants everything from you, you make a decision.
 
Irregardless of the money, I think it is absolutely wrong that she has 3 of their 4 children in photographs for the publicity/press photos.
The children should be kept out of this, and is helping ensure there will be no possibility of reconciliation between they children and their father because they are being taught to hate their father. It's bad enough with what children (never mind us adults) have to deal with when adjusting to your parents separating, but having them pose with angry faces for the press pictures is not acceptable.
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I agree with you MayMay (even though irregardless isn't a word...LOL).

These kids have been through the wringer. She needs to stop using them to get a reaction out of their deadbeat dad.

And frankly, he really is a deadbeat.

I get that he has a major issue with his ex re-opening the spousal support but it was a temp order and he owed it to his kids to try to keep fighting it in court.

Bottom line, he ran from his own children...a sick child, a special needs child, and a teenager that is having drug issues and a 17 year old girl that needs a dad before she finds a bad guy to replace what he didn't give her. He picks up another wife in the Philippines...sad.

You can't tell me that 4 children that age aren't a severe money drain. Kids are freaking expensive. I would even have some sympathy for him if he was trying to send some amount of support funds to her on a monthly basis.

Instead he just takes off...I'm sorry but this is one seriously disgusting "man" (and I use the term lightly). However much he hates his ex, there's just zero excuse for what he's done to his many children.
 
fireweb13 said:
Sometimes when your in a very hard position it is very difficult to know what is right and what is wrong. In the article is leads to the fact that the children do not want to see their father, maybe they were alienated from him before this and he thought that he cannot afford what the courts ordered and his ex has alienated his kids against him anyways so its better to start fresh. When you do not have any idea of hope left, and any money left and kids who hate you and an ex who wants everything from you, you make a decision.
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BS

When you are a parent, you take care of your kids despite everything.

And what is the 'hope' you are talking about? Hope to have money? He chose to money over his kids. There is no other reason why he moved away.

Frankly, he sucks, there is no excuse to do what he did.
 
maybe they were alienated from him before this and he thought that he cannot afford what the courts ordered and his ex has alienated his kids against him anyways
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Wow really???

My ex trashes me to my kids all the time.

You know what I do? I spend time with them....stay positive and happy...and never stoop to his level. You counter that crap by the day-to-day behavior and persona you exhibit. You can't do that from the Philippines.

Taking off confirms it to the kids...its entirely the wrong thing to do if you love your kids at all.

People need to get over themselves. This guy put his own needs in front of his children's...period...and that is not how a human being who brings 4 children into the world should behave.

I am totally sympathetic to the plight of the amount of support this man may have had to pay...but that people are making excuses for him abandoning these children is outrageous, in my opinion. Even from the Philippines, he could be attempting to send some small amount of child support each month.

This one man is not more important than his 4 children are....period.
 
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Based on 2012 tax guidelines in Ontario, after taxes and child/spousal support this father will have $2079 in which he must also have a residence for 4 children and feed them while they are at his place, 4 kids but lets say minimum of a 3 bedroom house which would probably be around $1200 a month. So now he has $879 a month, and with this he must get to work, even public transit is at least $100 a month. So after everything he is left with nothing. His ex is living in a million dollar house on the waterfront and gets the kids full time, and he gets to live in a dump and barely afford to live. No wonder the guy left, yeah kids are a mothers and fathers responsibility but it should not mean that one parent has no quality of life and the other lives in a million dollar house.
 
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