LogFAQs > #965994012

WaterLink posted...

Father is a POS for drowning the kids

I've often wondered though, what would happen if a court ruled that the guy had to pay child support/alimony with very little or no custody, so the father just decided to off himself. Assuming he didn't have a life insurance policy or something, can't expect a dead guy to make payments so do the woman and kids get any kind of payments after that or is it just done?

In my state, the mother (technically the child, but the mother is supposed to act on the child's behalf; anyway, splitting hairs) would essentially be a creditor of the father's estate. If the father had a prior mortgage/deed of trust, the support obligation is subordinate to that mortgage. However, other secured interests are subordinate to the child support obligation, so the priority goes pre-existing mortgage>child support>other interests whose priorities we don't care about.

Basically you drain the estate of assets until there isn't anything left. If the father had income -generating assets, those assets could be placed in a trust to continue payments.