Grandmother Seeks Reimbursement for Unlawful Child Support

It is a fairly common occurrence for an individual to be facing child support payments after a divorce filing. This can even be true if the child is not yours biologically, but was part of a family that you married into.

What happens, however, when you are forced to pay child support payments for a child that is not yours, and was never attached to you through marriage?

One Florida grandmother has been fighting hard to figure out the answers to that question.

Vickie Holsey, 41-year-old Avon Park resident, has been forced to pay child support for her grandchild for over a year now, totaling roughly $4,000 of her own money. While she was concerned at the time about how that could be required of her, a major red flag went up in January, when her son (the grandchild’s father) turned 18. He was legally the one responsible for the child’s upbringing at that point, but Holsey was still required to make child support payments for some reason.

She sought help from Patricia Austin, a local civil rights advocate, who said “Ms. Holsey came to me and asked me to help her because she did not know how to rectify the problem. I thought it very strange the Department of Revenue would be holding her responsible for paying for her son’s child support.”

Holsey and Austin researched Florida statutes, and found none that require a grandparent to pay child support, so once they contacted the Department of Revenue, they were told the situation would be “taken care of.”

Unsatisfied with that answer, Holsey is seeking to be reimbursed for what she has paid so far. The two women are pressing forward with the matter, but are against the notion of filing a lawsuit.

Source: http://highlandstoday.com/hi/local-news/ap-grandmother-seeks-reimbursement-for-child-support-20140723