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Welcome to Family Law Matters. I’m Dr. Michael Mantell, privileged as always to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, who is the owner and managing partner of the Primus Family Law Group here in San Diego. Hi, Bonnie.

Hi, Michael. How are you doing today? Doing well. You have such a calm vibe that you’re giving off right now.

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Well, you know, family law can be very difficult, and you need to have somebody who can tone down some of the emotions of it. Yeah, someone who can figuratively hold your hand and your heart going through a difficult time. So one question that pops is this.

Husband and wife have been married numbers of years. They have children. Children are growing.

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Now the child is 18 years old, and for whatever reason, good, bad, or otherwise, the child support is not up to date. The payment on child support is not current. There’s back money that’s still owed.

But the youngster is now 18. He’s a young adult. What happens? Is the partner who is paying child support free because I’ve got a kid who’s 18? Or is there still a hook? Michael, there is still a hook.

The ongoing support ends if the child is 18 and graduated high school. But the back owed pay, which is accruing interest at the legal rate of 10 per year, is still owed. So those payments are still going to happen.

If he’s garnished, um, he may be the way the garnishment may actually stop unless they know about these arrears. If they don’t know about these arrears, then somebody has to go and get a new garnishment for the arrears. And then it will definitely continue.

Otherwise, it’s up to the payor to continue to pay or to make some arrangements for those arrears. So two questions on this. What if the payor has a really slick attorney, primus family law, and you figure out a way where he doesn’t have to pay the back money? Is that possible? If there are offsets or credits that she owes him, or if there is something else that she owes him, but even if he would, well, primus is an excellent law firm.

We are definitely not going to undermine a court order. And so we’re going to figure out a reasonable way without hopefully costing further litigation to figure out how to get this paid reasonably and in full. So Bonnie, this is obviously another example of two sides.

They will have issues. They have discussions. Do I pay? Do I have to pay? How do I get it? If they have questions, how can they be in touch to get information from you? They can reach me directly at 619-574-8000.

And they will be put on my calendar for a free 30 minute phone or zoom consultation. Or you can reach us online at www.primusfamilylaw.com. There’s a live chat agent. We have a form you can fill out.

Many ways you can reach us.