Divorce Advice for Men | Fathers Rights Divorce | Child Custody

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell

Note: This is part 2 of a two-part series on name changes after a divorce. Part 1 addressed name changes of your ex-wife or children.

If someone in your family does change names, be sure to update at a minimum:

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell, P.C., Detroit office

Note: This is Part 3 of a three-part series on passport problems for support non-payors. Click here to read Part 1 and click here to read Part 2.

There are plenty of costs for parents who dodge child support payments, most of which parents already know. Your judge can send you to jail, have a sheriff boot your car, order your driver’s and professional licenses revoked, and allow the State to garnish your wages, tap into your bank accounts and collect your income tax returns, to name a few. But other costs for even unintentional conduct go unknown, or unconsidered like urban myths, until they stare you in the face when you are ready for a break – passport denial and revocation.

Could the Secretary of State deny or revoke your passport when you have child support arrears? Yes! Here’s more:

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell, P.C., Detroit office

Note: This is Part 2 of a three-part series on passport problems for support non-payors. Click here to read Part 1.

There are plenty of costs for parents who dodge child support payments, most of which parents already know. Your judge can send you to jail, have a sheriff boot your car, order your driver’s and professional licenses revoked, and allow the State to garnish your wages, tap into your bank accounts and collect your income tax returns, to name a few. But other costs for even unintentional conduct go unknown, or unconsidered like urban myths, until they stare you in the face when you are ready for a break – passport denial and revocation.

Could the Secretary of State deny or revoke your passport when you have child support arrears? Yes! Here’s more:

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell, P.C., Detroit office

Note: This is Part 1 of a three-part series on passport problems for support non-payors. Click here to read Part 2.

It’s been a long, cold winter. Your divorce was over two years ago, or so you thought. That was when the judge ordered you out of your home, into the home you used to rent to college students (none too careful to patch the holes in the wall from too many games of indoor baseball). That was when the judge ordered you to payoff half of your and your ex-wife’s credit cards (most from her weekly trips to the spa and mall on the expensive side of town). That was when your judge reduced you to a weekender parent (who pays child support like a bottomless ATM or the proverbial money tree). But that was also when you ventured out into the single life, determined to make it on your own, dumpy house and debt and weekend child and all. And for a time, you did.

But this winter was different. You lost your job. Your car broke down. Your ex-wife nit-picked every weekend parenting time. She had an expensive lawyer. You had none. To appease her, you started paying child support directly to her. She hated waiting for her checks in the mail from the State. She promised she and her lawyer “would take care of everything,” so you ignored the past due support notices in the mail. She wouldn’t try to collect, so why worry?

It was time for a break. Yes, a short trip in the sun with the money your parents gave you on your birthday – “Just in case you need it,” they said, eyeing the holes left in your rental home. Maybe you could find a job overseas. You promised yourself you would not spend much, only for the basics. You searched and searched online to find the cheapest prices –- a red-eye flight mid-week, an economy hotel close to the beach, complementary breakfasts with fruit you could stow away for lunch. This would be a pleasant parting from the stress of it all, just for a few days.

But not so fast. The Secretary of State revoked your passport.

By Jennifer M. Paine

Attorney, Cordell & Cordell, Detroit office

Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part overview of overseas travel post-divorce. Click here to read Part 2.

Thinking about a trip with your children overseas for spring or summer break? Maybe a long weekend for a sightseeing safari, or volunteering in Haiti, or cruising in the Mediterranean this summer?

Think again. If your children are 16 or younger and need passports, your ex could thwart your travel plans and send you back to court fighting first.

It’s a power woefully addressed in divorce decrees, if not wholly forgotten: the Two Parent Consent Law, i.e., the one parent veto power. Here is everything you need to know and how to avoid your ex’s veto.