Since your divorce, you have been making child support payments. You do have custody rights, but you generally see your child only on the weekends. Your former spouse earns less money and spends more time raising the child, so you were ordered to pay support as a result.
However, you have recently been looking at your income and comparing it to your debt, and you realize that there is no way to address all of the financial obligations you have. Maybe it is difficult to pay the rent or the mortgage. Maybe you have significant outstanding credit card debt. Perhaps you have medical bills that are going unpaid because you simply do not have the money.
You have been thinking about using bankruptcy to address some of these issues, such as your credit card debt. Can you also use it to eliminate your child support obligation?
Child support cannot go through bankruptcy
No, as a general rule, you are not allowed to include child support in a bankruptcy plan. This means that you cannot cancel future payments just because you declared bankruptcy, and you cannot even include back payments. For example, if you have missed a few payments and you owe your former spouse a significant amount of money, you are still obligated to pay that, even if you declare bankruptcy.
However, bankruptcy can still be helpful. If you were able to eliminate your medical bills and your credit card debt, would that make it easier to pay child support every month?
These types of financial cases can often grow complex, and it is important to know how bankruptcy law works and all of the legal options that you have at your disposal.