Bankruptcy attorney Holly H. Hines is an advocate for consumers who makes it her goal to help her clients make more informed decision about their financial future. She runs a law office in Worcester County, Massachusetts, and is an active member of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. In this article, Hines explains how filing for bankruptcy can impact the child support payments that a person is required to make.
Typically, domestic support obligations such as child support or alimony are not debts that are dischargeable through the bankruptcy process. As long as the payments are coming from the probate court orders, there is not much a bankruptcy filing can do to get rid of them.
The reason for this is because domestic support obligations are looked at by the court as priorities in one’s life, and the court sees that as something that people should be required to pay for to help their former domestic partner or children. So that is generally why they refuse to discharge those types of debts.
Even though child support and alimony are not dischargeable through bankruptcy, it doesn’t mean there is nothing we can to alleviate some of the stress for our clients.
In a Chapter 13 filing, we can certainly use the payment plan that we are given to pay back some of those debts for folks who may have already gotten behind on their child support payments. For a person who might be paying his child support payments directly to the former spouse or parent, then we could also set up a system where those payments would instead go through a Chapter 13 plan to help catch him up on what he still owes.
Bankruptcy can’t always get people out of all types of debts, but there is almost always a way that we can structure things to make paying those monthly payments a little easier for our clients.
This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.
