History

• Beginning in the latter part of the 1980s, legislatures across the United States began enacting new laws designed to provide more enforcement to child-support collection. As part of this overall objective, one tool that state governments enhanced was the ability to garner past-due child support from money due to be inherited by a parent with a delinquent child-support account. Child-support and inheritance laws now are better coordinated to assist in obtaining funds to which a child is entitled.
  
  

Function

• The coordinated function of child-support and inheritance laws permits a parent or a child-support collection agency the ability to make a claim in an estate case for past-due child support. Under the law a parent or child-support collection agency is given a priority status and able to intercept funds and property that otherwise would pass to the heir of an estate when that heir is delinquent in his child-support payments.
  
  

Time Frame

• In order to succeed at intercepting money that otherwise would pass to an heir, a parent or child-support collection agency needs to take action in a pending probate case in a timely manner. A claim designed to redirect money or property intended to pass to an heir that is behind in child-support payments must be filed within a set period of time or the ability to take such action is lost forever. The time frame varies from state to state but normally is a period of between 90 to 120 days after an estate case is opened in probate court.
  
  

Effects

• The net effect of coordinated application of child-support and inheritance laws is to reduce the level of delinquent child-support accounts. More money is directed toward the care and support of children.
  
  

Expert Insight

• Taking advantage of child-support and inheritance laws in order to obtain funds to pay past-due child-support obligations is a complicated process in many instances. A parent who desires to collect past-due child support on behalf of her child strongly is advised to retain an experienced lawyer to assist with these types of issues. Although the state and local bar associations cannot make a specific referral to a lawyer, these organizations do maintain directories of attorneys in specific practice areas.