FRO...Family Responsibility services of Ontario

[Gentlescorp]

Are they for real? Do they really care about the families, wives and children? A Korean friend I know who got divorced about 5 yrs ago and his spousal support agreement was about 1800 a month. But he lost his business and now working for someone with a lot less pay and income. Half of his wages were garnished which left him with barely enough money to live on and sleeping in his car for a few mos now and using a gym nearby for his shower and toilet and such.

He was told about 5-6 months ago that he was behind his payment roughly about $35k and might lose his driving license if he cannot come up with some kind of payment even tho they are getting half of his income plus his GST benefits and all. He will definitely lose his job if his driving license is yanked and the wife and his 10 yrs old daughter won' t get anything. He pleaded with the judge on his last court date and it seems they had fallen onto deaf ears. He had made some mistakes in court while his divorce case was on trial and cannot appeal his spousal support payments for a reason I couldn't understand.

The way he told me is he might be in jail for 60 days by middle of this month. What the f@#$ was FRO and the judges thinking? Who is gonna benefit from all this if he were put in jail and lost his job when he came out. He said he'd rather be on welfare after he got out of jail. He said he is better off that way with all the assistants and benefits from Gov't. Looks to me like the FRO doesn't really care about the families or the kids. All they care about is their existence and securing their high paying jobs. Where is the fairness and justice here? The judges are in that too from my observations.

Thank God..he is a selfless, harmless non violent type guy. No wonder some guys went nuts and ended up killing family members or burning down the house and such.

 

[rgkv]

I know the feelings. I have paid spousal support for about 11 years now, looks like for life, and we had NO KIDS>>
But, as bad as it feels FRO is only acting on orders.
It's the law..
As for the license business.. my under standing is if they take his licence and he needs it to earn a living a judge will give it back?
Not a 100% on that ....
I have had them grab half my money too.. that's all, again by law, they can take, forget their formula but they have one.
I'm sure your buddy, if he is that far be hide in payments knows all this { unless he threw the mail out as it came because he was pissed LOL} because the paperwork and notices never stop.
It is fairly easy to make a deal with them and save yourself a lot of trouble. Just a call away, they will take anything. Holds them at bay till plan B is thought out..

 

[Gentlescorp]

C' mon. The guy has nothing more to offer to make the deal. He has been sleeping in his car for 2 mos now cuz he cannot afford the rent.He told me he even did a gas and dash twice last winter cuz he was so broke. The wife is getting roughly about $1,000 a month from his garnishment and tax refunds. She is a real estate agent who is doing well and living in a luxury house, driving an Audi. The guy is washing dishes sometimes to get free meals. Where is the fairness here? What kind of justice and law is this? He is not a dead beat dad. Where is the humanity here?

 

[GPIDEAL]

Are they for real? Do they really care about the families, wives and children? A Korean friend I know who got divorced about 5 yrs ago and his spousal support agreement was about 1800 a month. But he lost his business and now working for someone with a lot less pay and income. Half of his wages were garnished which left him with barely enough money to live on and sleeping in his car for a few mos now and using a gym nearby for his shower and toilet and such.

He was told about 5-6 months ago that he was behind his payment roughly about $35k and might lose his driving license if he cannot come up with some kind of payment even tho they are getting half of his income plus his GST benefits and all. He will definitely lose his job if his driving license is yanked and the wife and his 10 yrs old daughter won' t get anything. He pleaded with the judge on his last court date and it seems they had fallen onto deaf ears. He had made some mistakes in court while his divorce case was on trial and cannot appeal his spousal support payments for a reason I couldn't understand.

The way he told me is he might be in jail for 60 days by end of this month. What the f@#$ was FRO and the judges thinking? Who is gonna benefit from all this if he were put in jail and lost his job when he came out. He said he'd rather be on welfare after he got out of jail. He said he is better off that way with all the assistants and benefits from Gov't. Looks to me like the FRO doesn't really care about the families or the kids. All they care about is their existance and securing their high paying jobs. Where is the fairness and justice here? The judges are in that too from my observations.

Thank God..he is a selfless, harmless non violent type guy. No wonder some guys went nuts and ended up killing family members or burning down the house and such.

Not to say that your friend did this, but judges and the FRO have seen many support payers put their businesses underground on purpose in an attempt to defeat or lower the support obligations. Child support is based on government calculations and have nothing to do with income level, IIRC.

Hate to say it, but your friend needs to find a second job and bust his ass.

We have a few construction workers paying child or spousal support. The first guy thinks that $800 per month is too high for his kid. I tend to disagree. Another guy recently was ordered to pay about $2,700 a month in spousal support because his wife never worked, but he probably didn't hire a lawyer? That seems high but it's also based on income, and it might work out to half his net pay for a year.

 

[GPIDEAL]

C' mon. The guy has nothing more to offer to make the deal. He has been sleeping in his car for 2 mos now cuz he cannot afford the rent. The wife is getting about $1,000 a month from his garnishment and she is a real estate agent who is doing well and living in a luxury house, driving an Audi. The guy is washing dishes sometimes to get free meals. Where is the fairness here? What kind of justice and law is this? He is not a dead beat dad. Where is the humanity here?

This doesn't make sense. If she's employed, surely she should be contributing to half of the child support.

 

[JMrandomstuff]

If one parent has the children more than 60% of the time, they are usually the recipient. Special expenses are split in proportion to income.

FRO can't change support orders. If payor has a legitimate reason to change support - as in he makes less $ - he can go to court and have the support order changed. This can be simple if both parties agree to it.

Most of the time, payors who end up on the wrong side of FRO are the authors of their own misfortune.

 

[Gentlescorp]

Not to say that your friend did this, but judges and the FRO have seen many support payers put their businesses underground on purpose in an attempt to defeat or lower the support obligations. Child support is based on government calculations and have nothing to do with income level, IIRC.

Hate to say it, but your friend needs to find a second job and bust his ass.

We have a few construction workers paying child or spousal support. The first guy thinks that $800 per month is too high for his kid. I tend to disagree. Another guy recently was ordered to pay about $2,700 a month in spousal support because his wife never worked, but he probably didn't hire a lawyer? That seems high but it's also based on income, and it might work out to half his net pay for a year.

I know what you are trying to say. He is not that healthy to work two jobs. He was stressed out 2-3 yrs ago after he lost his business and all collection agencies were after him. He was under social assistance for about 5-6 mos until he found this new job which is paying just slightly over minimum wage. He seems like he has given up hope, lost all his motivations and have lost faith in the system here. He is 12 yrs younger than me but looks older.

 

[FTWWTF]

A female friend of mine goes to Bingo on a regular basis. She says any wins over 1000.00, and they take your ID and check it against the FRO list. And if you owe then they keep the winnings and send it to them.

 

[mandrill]

Are they for real? Do they really care about the families, wives and children? A Korean friend I know who got divorced about 5 yrs ago and his spousal support agreement was about 1800 a month. But he lost his business and now working for someone with a lot less pay and income. Half of his wages were garnished which left him with barely enough money to live on and sleeping in his car for a few mos now and using a gym nearby for his shower and toilet and such.

He was told about 5-6 months ago that he was behind his payment roughly about $35k and might lose his driving license if he cannot come up with some kind of payment even tho they are getting half of his income plus his GST benefits and all. He will definitely lose his job if his driving license is yanked and the wife and his 10 yrs old daughter won' t get anything. He pleaded with the judge on his last court date and it seems they had fallen onto deaf ears. He had made some mistakes in court while his divorce case was on trial and cannot appeal his spousal support payments for a reason I couldn't understand.

The way he told me is he might be in jail for 60 days by end of this month. What the f@#$ was FRO and the judges thinking? Who is gonna benefit from all this if he were put in jail and lost his job when he came out. He said he'd rather be on welfare after he got out of jail. He said he is better off that way with all the assistants and benefits from Gov't. Looks to me like the FRO doesn't really care about the families or the kids. All they care about is their existance and securing their high paying jobs. Where is the fairness and justice here? The judges are in that too from my observations.

Thank God..he is a selfless, harmless non violent type guy. No wonder some guys went nuts and ended up killing family members or burning down the house and such.

This is the nub of the whole situation. Judges are normally more than anxious to come up with a sensible resolution and if a guy has genuinely fallen on hard times, the judge will give him a break. This is subject of course to the common sense proviso that guys make up fictional hard luck stories all the time and judges quickly become cynical and hard to convince. What did the guy do to disqualify himself from arguing the child support issue? Was it some procedural fuck up? Did he fail to meet the judge's deadline for providing proof of income? There could be all sorts of stuff he did / didn't do.

 

[Gentlescorp]

This is the nub of the whole situation. Judges are normally more than anxious to come up with a sensible resolution and if a guy has genuinely fallen on hard times, the judge will give him a break. This is subject of course to the common sense proviso that guys make up fictional hard luck stories all the time and judges quickly become cynical and hard to convince. What did the guy do to disqualify himself from arguing the child support issue? Was it some procedural fuck up? Did he fail to meet the judge's deadline for providing proof of income? There could be all sorts of stuff he did / didn't do.

He made some mistakes for sure and his committal court date is next Thursday and most likely he will be locked up the same day. My point here is ...Does any one gain anything out of this? He will be locked up for a few days or months and will lose his license and his job. His ex and his daughter will lose about 1000 dollars in income a month and we tax payers will pay for his stay in jail. He probably will be on social assistance again when he came out. The only people who came out ahead in all this are the FRO officers. Where is the common sense and justice here?.

 

[mandrill]

He made some mistakes for sure and his committal court date is next Thursday and most likely he will be locked up the same day. My point here is ...Does any one gain anything out of this? He will be locked up for a few days or months and will lose his license and his job. His ex and his daughter will lose about 1000 dollars in income a month and we tax payers will pay for his stay in jail. He probably will be on social assistance again when he came out. The only people who came out ahead in all this are the FRO officers. Where is the common sense and justice here?.

Well, the FRO people don't come out ahead; they are simply civil servants who are doing their job. I happen to know the FRO courtroom attorneys personally and they would far prefer to give the payor a break and work out a reasonable settlement. They're nice, mild-mannered, decent people and not hard-faced harridans.

The law has to be enforced or else it will be ignored. Guys are only jailed as a last resort and usually because the judge thinks that they are lying. If the ultimate sanction of jail was never applied, then the hard cases would scoff at the law and the courts.

I mean, who "comes out ahead" when a rapist or fraudster is jailed?

 

[mandrill]

This doesn't make sense. If she's employed, surely she should be contributing to half of the child support.

Well, she is housing, feeding and clothing the kids from her own pocket - apparently without Dad's financial support. Sounds like she's doing her part.

 

[mandrill]

From an insider's viewpoint, the system works pretty well 90% of the time. Judges are nice enough people and in Family Court usually have a lifetime of hand's on Family Law experience representing both dads and moms behind them. They don't want to jail a guy for exactly the reason that it serves no one's immediate interest to do that. They want the guy to pay. And it is easy to work out what he should pay because there is a child support chart and a spousal support computer program that tells you. Judges have them. If guys simply refuse to pay and smokescreen and bullshit and get away with it, the system breaks down and collapses.

The system is premised on the ideal that the guy has numerous opportunities to tell his side of the story.

Normally when it all goes bad is that the guy fucks up so enormously that he gets disqualified from arguing certain issues. For instance, he disobeys the judge for no good reason and refuses to produce his income tax returns, or doctor's reports or business statements time after time after time. So the judge ends up warning him and then telling him that his chance to prove that his business has failed or that he medically cannot work has now ended due to his own non cooperation. The judge then assesses the guy for what the judge thinks he could earn. If that's too high, the guy could truly be ass-fucked; OTOH he has probably been given 2, 3 or 4 "last chances" before the judge lost patience.

 

[Gentlescorp]

I know him quite well and he showed me all his court documents which he submit all his income T4 tax assessments on his financial statements. He has absolutely nothing at all. I don't even know how he survives with that kind of income. I myself have been in that situation 2 yrs ago and I know how he feels. My pension and my old age security were all garnished 50% and that was not enough and was a few hundreds below my spousal support judgement. So I have to come out of retirement and working and paying 50% of my employment income to meet that spousal support settlement we had agreed upon while I was running my business. We have grown up kids and she is still working full time but I was married for 35 yrs so I have to pay till death do us part. It is life sentence for me.

 

[freedom3]

I know him quite well and he showed me all his court documents which he submit all his income T4 tax assessments on his financial statements. He has absolutely nothing at all. I don't even know how he survives with that kind of income. I myself have been in that situation 2 yrs ago and I know how he feels. My pension and my old age security were all garnished 50% and that was not enough and was a few hundreds below my spousal support judgement. So I have to come out of retirement and working and paying 50% of my employment income to meet that spousal support settlement we had agreed upon while I was running my business. We have grown up kids and she is still working full time but I was married for 35 yrs so I have to pay till death do us part. It is life sentence for me.

Do you regret marrying her? Just curious.

 

[mandrill]

I know him quite well and he showed me all his court documents which he submit all his income T4 tax assessments on his financial statements. He has absolutely nothing at all. I don't even know how he survives with that kind of income. I myself have been in that situation 2 yrs ago and I know how he feels. My pension and my old age security were all garnished 50% and that was not enough and was a few hundreds below my spousal support judgement. So I have to come out of retirement and working and paying 50% of my employment income to meet that spousal support settlement we had agreed upon while I was running my business. We have grown up kids and she is still working full time but I was married for 35 yrs so I have to pay till death do us part. It is life sentence for me.

There must be a "catch" somewhere. If his situation was that straightforward and sympathetic, neither FRO nor the judge would be out to get him.

Have him show you the judge's "endorsements". These are photocopies of the judge's notes, comments and orders on his case. This will illustrate the judge's reactions to his presentation.

 

[KBear]

It must be a common situation where the guy’s business fails either because he is too stressed to hold the business together or he lets it fail to avoid payments.

 

[trtinajax]

Not to say that your friend did this, but judges and the FRO have seen many support payers put their businesses underground on purpose in an attempt to defeat or lower the support obligations. Child support is based on government calculations and have nothing to do with income level, IIRC.

Hate to say it, but your friend needs to find a second job and bust his ass.

We have a few construction workers paying child or spousal support. The first guy thinks that $800 per month is too high for his kid. I tend to disagree. Another guy recently was ordered to pay about $2,700 a month in spousal support because his wife never worked, but he probably didn't hire a lawyer? That seems high but it's also based on income, and it might work out to half his net pay for a year.

A real system would have the wife paying alimony to him. This is simply a case of the feminist take advantage of a male sucker system.

 

[renaissance]

FRO can suck my dick
But your right that they are bureaucrats, just doing the job as they are told to do it.

 

[GPIDEAL]

Well, she is housing, feeding and clothing the kids from her own pocket - apparently without Dad's financial support. Sounds like she's doing her part.

I meant with respect to the support calculation. His support obligations are still accruing while she is doing her part. My question is, do they take into her account her income too? I can understand if $1,000 per month includes a measure of compensating her for her time as a mom, but wonder if they impute her income as a monetary source to share the cost of bills.