Many people ask when they can stop worrying about their ex-spouse collecting child support. The short answer: never. Many other people ask if it has been too long to collect unpaid child support. Arizona has no statute of limitation on child support that the court ordered a parent to pay. Arizona also has no statute of limitation on a judgment for unpaid child support.
If a judge entered an order that a parent pay child support, there is no time limit on when the other parent may collect any unpaid child support. Also, a court cannot retroactively change child support. Therefore, if a parent loses his or her job and stops paying child support, that parent cannot get out of the child support debt by later showing that his or her income changed. In order to get relief for a change in financial circumstances, that parent must file a petition to modify child support right away.
If a judge enters a judgment for unpaid child support, whether it is child support that a parent did not pay after the judge entered a child support order or whether it is for child support prior to a court order, that judgment never expires. Most judgments in Arizona expire after five years unless the judgment creditor renews the judgment, which requires the filing of an affidavit of renewal of judgment. However, the affidavit is not necessary to renew a child support judgment because child support judgments do not expire.
The only way that the passage of time can help a parent who did not pay child support or hurt a parent who did not collect child support is when there is no order for child support. When a parent seeks a child support order, the court may go back up to three years and enter a judgment for past child support. Therefore, if a parent never seeks child support, the other parent can only escape all liability for child support when the child turns 21years old. There are a few narrow exceptions. Another example would be if the parents separated when the child was six years old and the custodial parent did not seek child support until the child was 12 years old. The court in that instance would only be able to enter judgment for past child support back to when the child was nine years old.
However, the parent who is to receive child support should not take too much confidence from the fact that there is no statute of limitation for child support. If a parent does not collect for too long, the arrears and interest will eventually reach an amount that will be impossible to completely collect because of sheer volume. For example, if a parent does not make court-ordered child support payments and owes $300,000.00, is 50 years old, and has never earned more than $60,000.00 in a year, the chances are that the other parent will never collect that $300,000.00.
Therefore, the lesson is that a parent whom the court orders to pay child support should pay child support. Death is very nearly the only way to get out of it, and even if that parent reaches the point at which it is impossible to collect all of the arrears, the arrears will likely dog that parent until death. If that parent’s financial circumstances change making it more difficult to pay child support, then that parent should file to modify child support instead of assuming that the court will just change it later. Also, the other consequences of not paying child support can be much more severe. As for the parent who receives child support, the lesson is to collect unpaid child support without waiting too long, to not give up just because it has been a long time since the last payment, and to establish child support before waiting several years.
