{"id":3600,"date":"2018-05-29T10:17:20","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T17:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jacksonwhitelaw.com\/arizona-family-law\/?page_id=3600"},"modified":"2022-07-11T16:26:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T23:26:31","slug":"who-gets-the-interest-on-child-support-arrears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jacksonwhitelaw.com\/arizona-family-law\/blog\/who-gets-the-interest-on-child-support-arrears\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Gets the Interest on Child Support Arrears in Arizona?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/h2>\n

Child support in Arizona, like in any other state, is often filled with hostility and entitlement . This hostility usually is because the parent responsible for payments thinks that it is too much money or the custodial parent thinks that it isn’t enough. Whether you like it or not, once the child support amount is set by the court or signed and agreed upon in a legal binding document, this will be the amount required to be paid each month. This is why it is so important that you work with a family law attorney during this process.<\/p>\n

What is Child Support Arrears and What Causes It?<\/h2>\n

Arrears is defined as “money that is owed that should have been paid earlier”, so in a child support case this refers to either payments that were missed or payments that were not paid on purpose. While these are two possible ways that payments fail to happen, the reasoning behind them varies.<\/p>\n

One of the most common reasons that this happens is because as the child gets older the amount of money that the child requires decreases. Maybe the child got a job and started paying for a lot of their own expenses, or maybe they simply don’t require as much money to be taken of. This can cause the parent responsible for payments to believe that they can be more relaxed with their payments, making less than the monthly total they have been paying or even skipping some months all together. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.<\/p>\n

Just because the financial needs of the child has changed doesn’t mean the amount of child support changes.<\/p>\n

Another one of the most common reasons that people fail to pay their child support is because they disagree with the amount of money that the judge ruled they have to pay. Instead of following the contract they are legally bound to they make smaller payments than required or just don’t make the payments at all. This is also a mistake.<\/p>\n

There is No Avoiding Child Support Payments<\/h2>\n

Child support is taken extremely serious in Arizona, families rely on this money as part of their monthly income and even missing one payment can cause a lot of harm. Since child support is a legally binding contract, there is no way to avoid paying it. The consequences of not paying or missing payments can cause the parent responsible to owe even more money than before.<\/p>\n

To some people this doesn’t matter. They can increase the amount of child support all they want, but that still won’t get them to pay it. The Arizona state legislature<\/a> has already thought about this scenario and has other means in which they can get you to make the payments.<\/p>\n

A judge can do the following if you are not paying your child support:<\/p>\n