There are a number of reasons why a child support payment is overdue:

• the payment was late or not paid
• there was a change to the assessment that caused arrears
• the receiving parent has asked us to collect arrears
• a court order.

If you have missed a payment, you need to contact us and get back on track so the problem doesn’t get out of control.

When we talk to you, we’ll consider your circumstances and come up with a manageable payment arrangement. If we can’t come to an arrangement with you, we’ll actively try to recover the overdue child support for the benefit of your children.

We follow this process when trying to recover overdue child support:

1. Telephone the paying parent to discuss the outstanding payment, including giving them the chance to pay outstanding amounts voluntarily.
2. Assess the paying parent’s ability to pay and their attitude towards paying the outstanding amount.
3. Confirm the arrangements to clear the outstanding payment.
4. Discuss options for making ongoing payments and confirm arrangements.
5. If the parent refuses to pay, we determine the best enforcement option based on previous behaviour, risk and available data.

The legislation gives us powers to recover overdue child support through a number of ways, including:

• automatically deducting child support from your pay or income support payment
• working with banks to deduct money from your bank accounts
• working with third parties to pay the money to us on the paying parent’s behalf
• intercepting tax return refunds
• stopping you from leaving the country
• taking you to court.