Ideally, if your ex refuses to help pay for college you two can work out a solution without resorting to court. If that fails, here’s what you need to know about taking your ex to court if they insist on refusing to help:
Don’t Wait
Everything has a time limit, including demands that your ex-spouse pay their share of child support and/or college. If you wait too long to take your ex to court over failure to contribute to your children’s education, the court may interpret the time you waited as having waived your right to your ex’s financial contributions. If your ex has violated the divorce agreement in any way, it is imperative that you file a complaint against them immediately so you always have a paper trail to show the court.
Doing so also helps prevent your ex from claiming ignorance. Without having those complaints as evidence, your ex may be able to claim they didn’t know about the expenses. In some cases, they may even claim they had no knowledge of your child’s intention of going to college, where they were going, or what they were studying. Some people will then claim they were denied a say in their child’s future, and then you have another problem on your hands.
This is also why it’s important to maintain a record of all correspondence between your ex. Keep track of emails, letters, and statements between you and your spouse so you can prove you made them aware of the expenses and show the court your ex’s responses.
It’s also important not to wait to pursue an Order for college expenses once you know where your child wants to attend school. Many divorce judgments don’t address college because the children are too young at the time of divorce. So, we typically recommend you start the discussions about college with your ex when your high schooler starts visiting campuses. This way, if he or she indicates a refusal to help with tuition, you have time to consult with an attorney and get a motion on file with the Court.
Get an Attorney
If you can’t afford to hire an attorney to go to family court, you can take your spouse to court without an attorney – although we highly recommend you hire a competent legal professional to help represent your interests in court. If you make a mistake or forget to bring up an important point, it can be much more expensive to hire an attorney to try undo your mistake, if that’s even possible.
An attorney can also advise you on the how’s, what’s and when’s in filing for post-minor support, such as what is needed when filing, how to get information about the school’s cost, when the Court will deny a request for contribution to college, etc.
It Won’t Take as Long as You Think
If you’re afraid you don’t have time to take your ex to court and get them to pay up before the bills are due, you don’t have to worry. First of all, that’s why it’s so important for you to file a complaint against your ex as soon as possible – don’t wait until the bills are overdue, and certainly don’t wait until you’ve already paid them before filing, because a judge might perceive that to mean you’ve waived your right to your ex’s help in paying those bills. Also, many times the Court will back-date any Order for post-minor support to the date that you originally filed your motion.
Second, concluding a post-judgment motion (meaning a motion filed after the initial divorce judgment) does not have to take as long as the divorce itself. Unlike many court motions, which can often take months, if not years, to be decided, a post-judgment motion can usually be decided in much less time depending on the case. If it’s a simple matter of your spouse refusing to help pay your child’s education expenses, and you can prove they were made aware of the bills and have refused to contribute, it shouldn’t take a court long to decide the matter. If you don’t have an Order yet for contribution, the process is usually just a matter of exchanging the financial information about each parent’s income and the costs of the school so that the Court can decide whether it is appropriate to make the parents pay for college.
The attorneys at Sherer Law Offices have been providing legal representation for real estate cases, criminal cases, and all types of family law for more than 20 years. Our experienced divorce attorneys will take the time to really listen to your unique situation so that they can plan strategies that can best protect your best interests.
