Child Support Arrears: Difference between revisions

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| link = [http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/global/search?k=child%20support child support]''' and<br/>'''[http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/global/search?k=Family+Maintenance+Enforcement&f=Family+law Family Maintenance Enforcement]

FMEP is free for recipients. All you have to do is file your order or filed separation agreement with the program and fill out an application form. FMEP will take the matter from there, and the program is authorized by the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/840m Family Maintenance Enforcement Act]'' to take whatever legal steps are required to enforce an ongoing support obligation, and track and collect on any outstanding arrears, plus interest accumulating on those arrears.

More information about enforcing orders can be found in the page [[Enforcing Orders in Family Matters]]  and at the website of the [http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fcy-fea/sup-pen/enf-exe/index.html Department of Justice], which includes a helpful overview of support enforcement mechanisms in Canada.

===Separation agreements===

Section 148(3) of the ''[[Family Law Act]]'' allows a party to an agreement, usually a separation agreement, to file the agreement in the Provincial Court or in the Supreme Court. An agreement that is filed in court can be enforced as if it were an order of the court. It is not necessary for a court proceeding to have been started before an agreement can be filed in court.

More information about enforcing agreements can be found in the chapter on [[Family Law Agreements]], in particular the page on [[Enforcing Family Law Agreements]].

===Orders made outside British Columbia===

Section 20 of the ''[[Divorce Act]]'' says that an order made in a divorce action has legal effect throughout Canada. It also provides that such an order may be filed in the courts of any province and be enforced as if it were an order of the courts of that province. In other words, if your divorce order was made in Alberta and contains a term requiring child support to be paid, you can register that order in the Supreme Court of British Columbia and it will have the same effect and be enforceable here as if it were an order of the courts of British Columbia.

The provincial ''[http://canlii.ca/t/84l3 Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act]'' allows orders for child support made under provincial laws elsewhere in Canada, and in certain foreign states, to be filed in our courts and enforced as if they were British Columbia orders. The reciprocating states under the ''Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act'' are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Gibraltar, Norway, the Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and its protectorates, the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Barbados and its dependencies. Reciprocating countries appear in the ''[http://canlii.ca/t/84vn Interjurisdictional Support Orders Regulation]'' rather than the act itself.