Paternity test and child support questions?
The father of my unborn child lives in Illinois and I live in Missouri. He is trying to chuck responsibilities for paying child support for his child by saying that the baby is not his. This is my first baby, I am pretty unaware of the process for establishing paternity for enforcing child support payments. Would I need to pay for a paternity test since he is contesting paternity, does the state pay, does he pay…..how does that work? Also after paternity is established, what would I need to do to enforce child support payments?
If you have applied for or are receiving public assistance for your child like Section 8 Housing, food stamps, Medicaid or any other form of welfare, then the Missouri Office of Child Support Enforcement will take care of the paternity testing. They will also follow up on collecting child support since it goes, in the first instance, to paying back the state for any public assistance they have provided. If you are not planning on applying for any such public assistance program, you will need to file for paternity determination and child support in Missouri and have him properly served in Illinois. You would be better off having a lawyer help you with this. Otherwise you will need to go through the state office of child support enforcement which is not always responsive in non-welfare cases.
General Hospital 6/27/08 Part 4
