Can Child & Spousal Support Be Taken Out of Your Retirement?

Monthly child and/or spousal support payments are a way of life for many individuals across Virginia. In Virginia, courts can order parents to pay child support for their children, and spousal support for their ex-spouses. Sometimes parties agree to the amount of child or spousal support due as part of a pending divorce and separation. Naturally, there are times a parent fails to make the support payments, sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. What is a payee spouse to do in order to ensure payment for years of delinquent support?

As of 2012, the Virginia General Assembly passed a new law that allows the Court to enter a qualified domestic relations order specifically to enforce and collect past due child and spousal support in addition to the usual remedies of contempt charges, suspension of licenses, etc.  A qualified domestic relations order, or QDRO, in this case would order payment of past due support from a person’s retirement account such as pension, making it a useful tool in the collection of delinquent support for payee’s across the Commonwealth.

If you need representation for collecting past due spousal or child support, or need representation for failure to pay support, please contact Winslow & McCurry at 804-423-1382.