Child Support and Your Credit Report

If you are father to a minor child, that child needs support. Taking care of that child is the right thing to do. Failure to pay court ordered support will cause you to no longer have a clean credit report. Paternity must be established before child support is ordered and collected. Paternity can be established in a number of ways:

• Acknowledged Father - The biological father of a child born to unmarried parents for whom paternity is established by either the admission of the father or the agreement of the parents.
• Presumed Father - Unless proven otherwise in court, a man is presumed to be a child's father if any of the following are true:
  1. The man was married (or attempted to marry, even if marriage was invalid) to the mother when the child was conceived or born (in some states, unless separated).
  2. The man and mother married after birth and agreed either to have his name on the birth certificate or to support the child.
  3. The man welcomed the child into his home and held the child out to be his own.
     NOTE: In some states presumed paternity is conclusive, meaning even with contradictory blood tests can not be disproven.
• Alleged Father - An unmarried man who impregnated the mother is often referred to as the alleged or unwed father. If he acknowledges, or a court proves, that he is the father then he is responsible for support and has rights to visitation and to seek custody.
• Equitable Father - In Michigan and Wisconsin, a man who is not a legal parent (neither biological or adoptive) may be granted visitation or custody of a child when:
  
  1. A close relationship develops between the father-figure and child,
  2. and where they consider themselves father and child,
  3. or the mother encouraged this relationship.

Additional information is located on these pages:

• Credit Repair Tip - Tips you can use to improve your credit score.
• Credit Score - Understanding credit scores is critical for almost all consumers in today's marketplace.
• Divorce Decree - What you need to know about straightening out your credit after a divorce decree.

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