Enforcement Is Not Modification
These two get mixed up constantly, and the difference matters.
Modification asks the court to change an order because something real has changed, a lost job, a serious illness, a child's needs. You are asking for different terms going forward.
Enforcement asks for nothing to change. The order is fine. The problem is that it is being ignored, and you want the court to make it stick.
If circumstances really have changed, the person who owes the obligation has to go and ask for a modification. Deciding on their own to just stop paying is not an option, and a court will not look kindly on it. Our page on modification orders covers that side.
What Can Be Enforced
Almost any family court order. The ones that come up most are:
- Child support, both the monthly amount and arrears that have built up
- Health insurance for a child, and unreimbursed medical costs
- Alimony, whether ongoing or a lump sum owed under the judgment
- Parenting time, including holidays and vacation arrangements
- Equitable distribution, such as transferring a property, a vehicle, a bank account or a retirement account
- College costs and other agreed contributions to education
- Keeping life insurance in place, and paying the premiums
- Any other term written into your settlement agreement or final judgment
Motion To Enforce Litigant's Rights
The main tool in New Jersey is a motion to enforce litigant's rights. It asks the judge to order the other side to do what they were already ordered to do.
The motion normally includes:
- A notice setting out exactly what you are asking the court for
- A sworn certification explaining what has happened and which part of the order was broken
- The supporting papers, such as the order itself, payment records, and messages between the two of you
The other side files a response. The judge may decide it on the papers, or may list it for argument.
What The Court Can Do
A judge who finds an order has been violated has real options:
- Order immediate compliance
- Enter judgment for the arrears
- Garnish wages
- Intercept tax refunds
- Suspend a driving or professional licence
- Order make up parenting time where time was wrongly denied
- Order the other side to pay your legal fees
- Impose sanctions
- In a serious and repeated case, order jail
Incarceration is the far end of the scale and it is not common. It exists for the person who can pay, has been told to pay, and still will not.
Build The Record First
Enforcement cases are won on paper. Before anything is filed, the violation has to be documented.
- Keep a record of every payment made and every one missed, with dates and amounts
- Keep every message about handovers, cancellations and refusals
- Note each time parenting time was denied and what reason was given
- Keep proof of anything you paid that the other side should have
A certification that says the other parent is always late is worth very little. One that lists fourteen dates is worth a great deal.
Try The Short Route First
Not every problem needs a motion. Sometimes a letter from a lawyer is enough, because the other side has worked out that you are serious and that the next step costs them money.
Where the violation is deliberate or has been going on for months, that rarely works, and waiting only lets the arrears grow and the missed parenting time pile up. A pattern of ignoring an order does not fix itself.
Do Not Answer It In Kind
This is the single most common mistake, and it is worth saying plainly.
If support is not paid, you do not get to withhold the child. If parenting time is denied, you do not get to stop paying support. They are separate obligations and the court treats them separately.
Do it anyway and you turn up in front of the judge as someone who also broke the order, and the strongest thing you had, being the one who did everything right, is gone.