1. Time is your best friend.

We often hear that “Time is an attorney’s best friend.”, but when it comes to child support matters, it’s also your best friend.  Acting quickly can make or break a case. It can be the difference between “adequate representation” and “damage control”.  If you get a letter from ASUME (the Puertorrican Child Support Administration), don’t wait a few months to look for help. It won’t go away, and it’ll only get worse.  Jump right on it, and make sure that if you can’t handle it on your own, ask for help.  Help out there, but you need to look for it.

2. Be very, very, VERY careful when you fill out that PIPE.

A PIPE is the standard financial information form for all child support cases.  It comes both in Spanish and English, and it’s as complicated and as cryptic as government forms get.  There are literally HUNDREDS of small spaces to outline your financial situation: income, expenses, dependents, people living in your household, etc.  Do NOT grab a pen and start hacking away at it. The instructions aren’t really that clear, and the form in English has none. Again, look for help. Ask before completing it, and DO NOT file it unless you have an attorney check it out before you do. Unless, of course, you’ve filled out many of them. Even so, have an attorney take a look at it. After all, it is under oath, so a voluntary mistake can become a crime in the long run.

3. Your expenses might become your income.

Child Support in Puerto Rico is calculated based on either your gross, after-tax income, or your EXPENSES.  Yes, you read right. Your expenses.  The logic behind this is that if you’re spending it, you must be making it somehow.  Many of us live well beyond our means.  We stretch our budget, we take out loans, we refinance our homes, and sometimes we just survive. Spending money is NOT necessarily proof that you’re making it.  It just means that your finances might be off, or that your economic situation is in bad shape.  But, if you fill out your PIPE wrong, and you put down every single expense you’ve ever paid, your child support is going to sky-rocket.  And then, you’ll just have another debt to rack up.

4. Keep good records of EVERYTHING.

You might consider this tip as “common sense”, but when dealing with Child Support, it goes well beyond that.  Before, during and after your child support review or modification, keep records of EVERYTHING.  Cancelled checks, money order stubs, bank account statements and receipts are your best friends when it comes to determining your child support.  Government records are notorious for being off.  Sometimes, you will need to correct these records.  If you keep better records than ASUME (and we know you do), it’ll be easy to prove that you’ve paid throughout the years.  If you send ASUME a letter, send it through Certified Mail with Return Receipt.  Keep a copy of the letter, keep a copy of the receipt, and keep a copy of the reply.  That way, you can prove that you HAVE been in touch.  If you call over the telephone, which I’ve always thought was a very bad idea when dealing with government agencies in Puerto Rico, keep a record of the date, the time you called, who you spoke with, and what you talked about.  I know it sounds a little extreme, but it’s better to have this and not need it, than to need it and not have it.  Think of it as a your child support safety net.

5. Make sure EVERYONE has your postal address.

All ASUME and court child support communications are sent to the “last known address of record”.  If you move, and never tell them that you did, they’ll just keep sending letters to your old address.  Some of these letters might be to let you know that they’ll increasing your child support payments, or they’ll be garnishing your wages, or your income tax return.  Every single time you move, make sure you tell ASUME. Make sure they GET the letter.  Keep a record of your letter (see step 4 above), and if a few months pass by, and you don’t receive anything from ASUME, worry.  And then, send them a letter with your address.

This isn’t a sure fire list to guarantee that everything works perfectly during your child support case in Puerto Rico.  It’s just a few tips based on my daily practice that you can consider an ounce of prevention, and maybe save you a few headaches along the way.

In Puerto Rico, that age is 21.

Even if the original Child Support Order issued in another jurisdiction states that the obligation ends when the minor reaches the age of 18, if the Child Support payments are reviewed in Puerto Rico, the age when the payments cease is automatically extended until the minor reaches the age of 21.

So remember:

Child Support payments in Puerto Rico end at 21 years.

ASUME is the main government entity for child support in Puerto Rico.

ASUME, an acronym for “Administración para el Sustento de Menores”, which directly translated reads “Administration for the Sustenance of Minors”, is the administrative entity whose main obligations are the management, modification and enforcement of child support determinations in Puerto Rico. Among the most important tasks that ASUME carries out is to execute orders to comply with child support for children living with their custodial parents in our jurisdiction.

On the other hand, any court in Puerto Rico is able to modify and enforce child support determinations. These specialized courts have a separate division who employ child support examiners who use their expertise to recommend judges on the correct procedure and specific findings of court ordered hearings held to calculate and determine how much child support is to be ordered to the non-custodial parent.

Why the difference? Child support is of such a great importance in our jurisdiction, that both venues have the legal right and obligation to guarantee that no child goes without sustenance. Therefore, great deference is granted by every arm of the state to make sure that these determinations are granted and carried out in the fastest, easiest, and most precise way.

What happens when the non-custodial parent lives in the United States?

Every state and U.S. territory is independent, which means that each one benefits of being able to govern itself separately from each other. All of them are linked by a federal government, which guarantees that every legal process is carried out as evenly as possible between each state. Federal laws usually have preference over state laws, but they must be balanced in their execution by both state and federal governments.

In order to make sure that child support determinations in each state are carried out by other states, Congress drafted the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, or UIFSA. This law allows the enforcement of child support determinations from one state or territory in another state. The UIFSA also requires that child support enforcement be granted equal treatment, regardless of which state ordered it, and which state must enforce it. It provides methods such as wage garnishment, debt collection, freezing of assets and several other economic means of assuring that the ordered child support is retained from the non-custodial parent, and ends up where it is needed the most.

The UIFSA applies to Puerto Rico child support orders, thus they can be enforced in any of the 50 states. It does have one caveat: The child support must be ordered by a court.

ASUME, with its expedited and informal approach which helps to order, modify and enforce child support, is the most common venue for child support petitions. These petitions are informal, usually do not require a lawyer, and can be granted through a couple of uncomplicated steps. Court ordered child support must comply with the usual legal formalisms that any other petition must include, such as a pleading, a summons and the same strict due process of any other legal process.

Child support petitions and reviews through ASUME only have to comply with a few letters written to the parties involved, and can be granted in a much shorter time. They are not hindered by the overburdened court schedule, and benefit from a presumption that the process was carried out correctly by law, but without the strict adherence requiered by the court process. Usually, a few letters later, and the process is over in a few weeks, instead of months.

Once ASUME orders that child support be granted to a minor, this determination must be validated in court for it to be enforceable in another state under the UIFSA.

If the non-custodial parent lives in another state, it is not until a court in Puerto Rico grants validity to the child support determination from ASUME that the UIFSA comes into play. Since the determination has been through ASUME, courts grant these deference and assume that they have validly been scrutinized. The court order is almost always granted, and therefore this determination is now enforceable by local child support authorities in other states. Now, local authorities can collect the child support in any way that the local law permits.

In my experience, non-custodial parents usually receive a letter from ASUME, along with a PIPE, and do not pay much attention to the request for information that must be submitted to ASUME. Some of them disregard this letter, thinking that it will go away, since Puerto Rico laws do not apply to them in another state. While this may not be completely true, the UIFSA grants ASUME the right to mandate child support, and ASUME can and will do so, with or without the parent’s input, representation or approval. A few months later, they receive a letter from their local child support agency informing them that their wage will be debited the amount due monthly for child support, and call me in outrage, only to hear that it may be too late to review their correctly determined child support. Sometimes, there are options still available. In every case, the best practice is to participate in the process from the beginning, and insure that it is carried out in the best interest of everyone involved.