Amid the stress of hospital visits and paperwork from your recent car accident, you finally secured the long-overdue personal injury settlement that promises to help you rebuild your life. But right before receiving it, you are hit with an unexpected shock. Much of the money that will help you get back on your feet might be diverted to cover unpaid or past-due child support.
This experience makes you pause and ask, “Can child support be taken from a personal injury settlement?” In a word—yes.
Child Support Liens Are a Real Thing
When someone falls behind on child support payments, the court has several methods to forcibly recover the money owed—assuming the paying parent hasn’t already worked out an agreement. You may have already heard of everything from wage garnishments to liens on property, losing your driver’s license, and even jail time. Well, one of the lesser-known sources that can be tapped into is future income in the form of a personal injury settlement.
This might seem surprising and be a bit frustrating—especially since your car accident and injuries don’t have anything to do with what you owe in child support. But if you haven’t been holding up your end of the bargain with your court-ordered child support agreement, your personal injury settlement could get caught in the crossfire.
Granted, not every child support arrears situation is intentional or calls for a judge to enforce your child support order. The paying parent often falls on hard times due to job loss, illness, or injury and struggles to make good on their obligations.
That said, there are just as many situations in which money is owed, and something has to give.
How Is Money Taken From My Personal Injury Settlement?
If a person who owes child support is awarded a settlement for injuries sustained in an accident, the courts can view that as future income and immediately place a lien on it. This means a portion of the money—sometimes even all of it—can be used to pay off the overdue child support. This applies whether the settlement is paid out in a lump sum or structured over time.
The amount deducted depends on the total amount you owe in back child support and the state’s rules on how much can be taken at once. Some states have caps or specific formulas for calculating lien amounts.
Generally speaking, once the settlement is finalized, the insurance company will pay the specified amount directly to the child support agency to satisfy the existing lien, then distribute the remaining funds to you.
So, the answer is yes. Child support can be taken from a personal injury settlement. While this might seem unjust to the payer, it is part of a broader effort to enforce child support obligations and ensure that children’s financial needs are met.
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