FRO, adult child support & overpayment

H

Headinthesand

New member
Hi everyone, I was on this chat many years ago and was hoping I wouldn't be back. No offense.... :)

First, I'm looking for a lawyer VERY experienced with FRO issues, specifically an adult child asking for support due to anxiety, overpayment due to arrears & parental alienation. Anywhere between East Ottawa all the way to Hawkesbury.

I've been blindly paying $2k per month as part of an agreement with FRO regarding arrears. I wasn't able to work for 4 years due to stress of the on-going alienation, not just with myself, but my entire family weren't able to communicate with my children. Over the past 20 years, I've had 12 different employers. It's been difficult.

FRO is telling me that our support agreement wasn't written according to government guidelines, which i can't understand why it wouldn't be, or why it matters. The CS was according to my salary and having 2 children. I also agreed to pay an extra $500 a month for post-secondary education, after-school activities, and trips. However, my children never saw this money.

I personally think that the $500 should have stopped when they reached 18 years of age, but I kept paying. I've also been paying for my eldest child even though it's confirmed that she's no longer entitled to this support. However, that part of the support wasn't put towards the arrears.

I've received a copy of all payments I've made since day 1. Turns out my arrears were paid off a long time ago, and that I'm owed between $17k and $43k, depending on the interpretation of the agreement. FRO is still threatening to take away my driver's licence if I miss a payment.

I need a lawyer who can fight for me since my fighting days are over.

I'll consider any advice, and answer any questions you may have.

Thank you.
 
Any lawyer should be able to help you.

You will need to file a motion and put forward what your actual income was and request disclosure on the expenses ordered.

Not sure why FRO is saying it is against the law. They aren’t supposed to interpret it, they just enforce the order.

Alienation has no bearing on it. You owe support whether you see your kids or not. A judge will tell you that and ask two questions—why it took you so long to deal with this and why you didn’t ask for details. I say this as the spouse of a man who was alienation and went to court to enforce his order and the law on support.
 
Does ODSP have anything to do with this? Just to clarify my youngest daughter is 25 y.o., so normally she should have stopped receiving CS 7 years ago. My ex just recently had her apply for ODSP. I read somewhere that is ODSP is denied, it can greatly affect the decision of according her "adult" CS.

Has anyone else experienced this?
 
Your child isn’t severely disabled and therefore not eligible for long term support.

You need to sit down and do a spreadsheet of what you owed, what you paid and what was either not paid or overpaid.
 
rockscan said:
Your child isn’t severely disabled and therefore not eligible for long term support.

You need to sit down and do a spreadsheet of what you owed, what you paid and what was either not paid or overpaid.
Click to expand...
I definitely know she isn't severely disabled, but who has the final word? I asked my ex about ODSP, and she said the application has been sent. Shouldn't she have applied when my daughter turned 18, 7 years ago? If she's denied ODSP is that an automatic "no" for long term support?

Why am I getting the feeling that FRO is trying to make my life hell.....
 
And I have the spread sheet already done. If I add all my payments since my youngest daughter became an adult and subtract my arrears, I'm close to $100k in over-payment, which I'll probably never get back.
 
There was a pretty big case several years ago that set the precedent for disabled enough for long term support. That child was in a wheelchair, non verbal, unable to care for themself and mom needed the support for respite care—a person to come in and help care for the child. That means someone to do diaper changes, bathing, feeding etc.

Who makes the decision? A judge based on this case.

If your child went to post secondary school (college or university) support was owed. If they didn’t get a degree, but still attended school, support is owed to age 22. It doesn’t automatically stop when they turn 18.
 
rockscan said:
There was a pretty big case several years ago that set the precedent for disabled enough for long term support. That child was in a wheelchair, non verbal, unable to care for themself and mom needed the support for respite care—a person to come in and help care for the child. That means someone to do diaper changes, bathing, feeding etc.

Who makes the decision? A judge based on this case.

If your child went to post secondary school (college or university) support was owed. If they didn’t get a degree, but still attended school, support is owed to age 22. It doesn’t automatically stop when they turn 18.
Click to expand...
The only official form that I've received is a T2201 Disability Tax Credit Certificate for the period between 2024 -2025. My daughter was born in 2001, so the question is "should there be paperwork between 2019 & 2024? Once she turned 18, CS stopped, so all I was paying were my arrears.

I understand the post-secondary education aspect of it, but, can attendance be taken into consideration?
 
I’m a little confused and would like more info.

Your original order had a set amount for cs and for section 7 yes? Did the amount of your income change in those years? Did you request to update? Were you in arrears due to not meeting the CS/S7 amounts in this order? Did your ex provide any documentation about total expenses during this time?

Did the order say CS should stop at 18 or did you just stop paying?

Was your child in school at all after 18?

Did you receive any documents about her being at school or those expenses?

Based on the answers to this, it might be easier to help. Your ex should have provided proof kid was in school via either a record of enrollment, tuition receipts, report cards etc. IF kid was in school all that time then CS is owed. Your ex should have provided receipts for all the school expenses to have your share determined. If she can’t provide these then you need to have them ordered.
 
Hi, I'll answer the questions in order.

Yes, the CS was for $700 and the S7 was for $500.

My income varied greatly. I was unemployed for a total of 4-5 years since the support agreement, but I've also had over 12 different jobs since then. So it's not like I'm not trying.

I never requested to update, didn't even know that was a possibility.

Yes, the arrears came from being unemployed and not paying CS/S7.

I've never received paperwork from her regarding expenses. Is this in regards to the S7?

The order says the CS, and I would assume S7, end at 18. FRO has confirmed that my eldest daughter has not been eligible for support since she turned 18. I assumed her share was going towards the arrears.

My eldest went to work directly after high school. The info regarding my youngest was never given to me even though I asked. I saw her last year and she mentioned wanting to take part time university classes. Current status is unknown.

Rockscan, I want to thank you for helping me out. It really helps to put my thoughts in order!

My ex is standing firm on wanting to keep the same agreement and is not open to negotiations. I've been "blindly" sending her $2000 a month for the last 3 years as part of an agreement with FRO.
 
Of course she doesn’t want to change, it’s free money!

You need to file an order to stop enforcement with FRO. That will be separate from the motion to get money back.

Have you tried contacting FRO and escalating to a manager? Have you reached out to the ombudsman for Ontario? Have you contacted your MPP? All three may help avoid court to stop enforcement. The ombuds will be very helpful. Tell them your order is clear on age 18 but they still won’t stop.
 
Adding, you’re welcome. A lot of people have judged me since I am a child of a deadbeat parent and am married to someone accused of being a deadbeat (they paid everything all the time). I find the whole FRO process to be stupidly bureaucratic and difficult to navigate and the time to fix things too slow. After three to four decades and a major digital transformation, FRO STILL can’t get it right.
 
I am so damn scared of going back to court and my ex knows this. Last time it destroyed me mentally.

What would the FRO manager tell me that my case worker hasn't already? Forget about the ombudsman or the MPP, that'll just give me another heart attack.

I just got off the phone with a lawyer. She seems nice. I'll be meeting with her at the end of the month.
 
Here’s the thing, no one wants to go to court but sometimes you just have to suck it up and do it. Letting her hold you hostage is unfair. I say this having watched my spouse experience major panic attacks (including night terrors) during his court case. Sadly he had to go through it and once he was on the other side, he recognized it had to happen.

You need an order. That is the only thing to focus on. Make her the villain you direct all your negative energy at.

FRO manager would have more power than your case worker. The ombudsman will help get movement. I had to deal with an ombudsman officer in a previous job. They are pit bulls when trying to fight for someone!
 
You had mentioned something about my ex having to supply receipts for other expenses. Was this regarding the S7? I've never received a single receipt.
 
It all depends on what your order says and what has happened.

Some orders say a set amount monthly and no receipts provided by a timeline on the monthly amount.

Some orders say a set amount monthly with receipts provided to show the amounts to be reconciled and then there is a timeline.

What did your order say about the expenses and the review?
 
Rockscan is asking you the right questions. I think the reason she is having difficulty following this is that there are several different legal/accounting issues being blended together, and there is also a more fundamental problem that you need to address before anyone can really help you.

You need to take control of your own file.

I don't say that to be harsh. I say it because throughout this thread there are repeated statements such as "I assumed", "I didn't know", "I don't remember what the order says", "I was blindly paying", and "I was hoping it was a standard requirement."

Those are precisely the things you cannot afford to continue doing.

FRO is an enforcement agency. It enforces the support order or domestic contract that it has on file. It does not rewrite your order because your income changed, decide that an adult child is no longer entitled to support, or retroactively correct an obligation because one of the parties believes the result is unfair. Only the court can change an order.

So before talking about a $17,000, $43,000 or $100,000 "overpayment", you first need to establish what was actually owing during each period.

Right now, you don't know that.

Your children's eighteenth birthdays do not, standing alone, establish the amount of an overpayment. Under Ontario's Family Law Act, support can continue for an unmarried adult child who is enrolled in a full-time program of education or who cannot withdraw from parental charge because of illness, disability or another cause. There isn't a universal "age 22" rule, and ODSP approval or denial does not substitute for the family court determining entitlement.

At the same time, if your actual order expressly contains an age-18 terminating event, that wording could be very important.

But you have now said you don't remember what the order says.

That has to be item number one.

Do not assume that the $500 stopped when child support stopped. Do not assume it continued either. Do not assume receipts were mandatory. Do not assume the money was being redirected toward arrears. Read the actual words of the order.

The same applies to your unemployment. You have explained that your income changed substantially and that you were unemployed for several years, but you never sought to change the support order. That is important. A historical reduction in income does not automatically mean the arrears calculated under the existing order disappear later. The Supreme Court of Canada dealt extensively with this problem in Colucci v. Colucci, 2021 SCC 24. Delay, disclosure and the circumstances surrounding a request for retroactive reduction matter.

So I would stop trying to calculate one enormous "overpayment" number.

Build the file chronologically instead.

Obtain the original support order or agreement.
Obtain every subsequent order, endorsement, variation and agreement.
Obtain the complete FRO statement of account.
Identify exactly what the $700 represented.
Identify exactly what the $500 represented and quote the actual paragraph dealing with it.
Identify every termination clause in the order.
Identify the monthly amount FRO says accrued during each period.
Identify every payment you made and how FRO allocated it.
Identify the arrears outstanding at the time each child turned 18.
Obtain your income records and Notices of Assessment for the disputed years.
Establish what each child was actually doing after high school: employment, school, course load, dates of attendance and dependency.
Identify what educational and section 7 disclosure you requested and what was actually provided.
Separate ongoing support, section 7 expenses, historical arrears and payments against arrears into different columns.

Only then can someone answer the question you actually care about:

What was legally owing versus what was actually paid?

There is another distinction you need to understand.

Agency is not blame.

Maybe FRO has made an accounting or enforcement error.

Maybe your former spouse should have provided information and didn't.

Maybe one or both children ceased being entitled to support much earlier.

Maybe the $500 was supposed to be reconciled against actual section 7 expenses.

Maybe there really is a substantial credit or overpayment.

Those are all possibilities.

But possibilities are not evidence.

Nobody on this forum can prove those propositions for you from "I assume", and your lawyer cannot efficiently do it either.

You have said that court was extremely difficult for you and that you are afraid of going through it again. I understand why that can produce avoidance. But avoidance unfortunately does not freeze a support order. If circumstances change and nobody brings the matter back before the court, the existing order generally remains the document FRO is expected to enforce. Ontario itself tells payors to contact FRO when their financial situation changes or when they believe support has ended, and confirms that only a judge can change the amount ordered.

That is why Rockscan keeps asking you questions about documents rather than simply agreeing that FRO owes you money.

She is trying to get you from narrative to evidence.

That is exactly where you need to go.

You also said:

"I need a lawyer who can fight for me since my fighting days are over."
Click to expand...

Getting a lawyer is probably sensible given the amount of money and history involved.

But don't hand your lawyer a twenty-year story and ask them to figure it out.

Hand them a twenty-year chronology.

There is an enormous difference.

If you walk into that meeting with the order, FRO accounting, income history, school information, section 7 documentation and a month-by-month spreadsheet, the lawyer can spend their time analyzing your legal remedies rather than billing you to reconstruct your life.

Most importantly, stop thinking of yourself as a passenger in this process.

Your former spouse is not responsible for managing your side of the file.

FRO is not responsible for protecting your litigation position.

Your lawyer can advise and advocate, but even your lawyer ultimately depends on you for the historical evidence.

You have to become the person who knows your own file better than anyone else.

Start with the order.

Post the exact wording dealing with child support, termination and the $500 section 7 amount—with names and identifying information removed.

Then Rockscan's questions become answerable, and so do many of yours.
 
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