How Long Does It Take To Get Child Support?
The answer to that question depends on a large number of factors, many of which our office has no control over, so we will provide just some very general answers here.
If a child support order has already been issued by a court in Tippecanoe County, and you know where the other parent works, we should be able to get child support withheld from the other parent's paycheck and sent to you within 30 days of your intake appointment.
If either paternity or support has never been established for your child, but the other parent is willing to cooperate with us, we can usually get a support order in place within 45 days and support payments flowing shortly after that. If paternity has not been established and the other party requests genetic testing, that typically adds approximately 30 days to the process.
If you and the other parent are unable to come to an agreement about paternity and support, we will file a petition with the court and ask to have a hearing date set. It is currently taking approximately 90 days from the date of filing to get a court hearing.
There are lots of reasons why the process can take much longer than these time frames, including: the non-custodial parent's whereabouts are unknown; the non-custodial parent resides in another state, is in the military, or is incarcerated; the non-custodial parent avoids service of summons or fails to appear at the court hearing; the non-custodial parent is unemployed, disabled, or works for cash under the table.