My fiance has been paying child support for a child he's not sure is his. He also doesn't know where the mother is located. How does he go about finding out where the money is actually going?
By Machelle Smith from Atlanta, GA
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Well, if he is not sure the child is his he can have that tested. It will cost him to have the test but it could be well worth it.
As for where the money goes that would depend on where he sends it. Is it going to a lawyer's office or to the mother?
If it's going to the mother and he wants to know how she is spending it there is nothing he can do for that unless the child is obviously in need from neglect. Meaning the money isn't going to the well being of the child which is mostly what it is for. It could also be used for the mother's rent or utilities because the child needs these as well. But if the mother is neglecting the child ( bad clothes, little or no food, no school supplies) then he could make an attempt to get custody of the child because of the neglect.
I am a retired Child Support agent for the State of Georgia. In Georgia, your fiance would have been served paperwork by the Sheriff's Department to appear in court regarding the paternity of the child in question. This was the procedure at the time of my retirement. If he had appeared in court, he would be given an opportunity to have paternity testing done at no cost to him unless the DNA testing proved he was, in fact, the father. Then he would have to pay the paternity test costs. If served and he failed to appear in court to dispute paternity, a default order would have been written and he would have been declared as Daddy.
Where does he send the money? It must be an agency if he's not sending it directly to the mother. The agency indeed makes sure the money gets to the mother for the child. Unless he goes to family court for child visitation it really isn't any of his business what the actual address of the mother is (and maybe not even then depending on the circumstances). And it's really not any of his business how every penny is spent because the child is living with her and not him and children are expensive!
OK, I'm having a problem. Legally, if he is current on his child support and has no other issues (like being an abuser, pedophile, etc), he has rights to the child, including visitation. Where was your fiancee when all these decisions were being made? Was he disinterested then? As for the money, it is going to the mother, to spend on the child as she sees fit, whether it be for clothing, food, a savings account, rent to keep a roof over the child's head, school supplies--just whatever.
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