My DCSE Case in Chesapeake

My husband's ex-girlfriend left and moved to Virginia Beach with their daughter. In April '06, shortly after my husband and I started dating, she filed for and recieved TANF payments for 2 kids by DCSE. She recieved those payments for almost a year before filing for current child support, which was also done for 2 kids.

When we recieved this order and saw it had been done for 2 children, we wrote an appeal and hired a lawyer in VA Beach. Because we live in Charleston, SC we had our hearing by phone. Our lawyer was present at the hearing and still failed to mention that the case was filed for 2 children. We didn't relize that untill the Hearing Officer asked for any final questions!

When my husband brought this to her attention, I noticed the ex's case worker seemed rather startled. When the Hearing Officer asked her about it she said she had made a mistake. The Hearing Officer then corrected both the current and past due amounts. Then we were told we had 10 days from reciept of the final judgement to appeal it to the Juvenile Court. When we didn't get anything in the mail, my husband called DCSE and was told that we actually had 10 days from the DATE of the hearing to appeal to Juvenile Court and that we had to request a copy of the final judgement to be mailed to us.

I do not remember exactly what the hearing officer said but I thought theyd send all the corrected documents for us to see and then we'd have 10 days to appeal to Juvenile Court. We requested the documents be sent to us and I wrote the appeal even though we had exceded our 10 day period. I explained that we may have been given false or incomplete information at the appeal and still, 3 months later, have had no reply from the Juvenile Court.

When we got the final decision the amounts were scratched out, re-written, and initialed by the Hearing Officer and the only corrected document we got was the worksheet for the current child support and on that document they simply wrote the corrected past-due amount and the dates. Since 7/07 my husband has had the current support and a portion of the past-due TANF garnished from each pay-check but we recently recieved a statement saying we owe almost $1000 more than the amount that was decided at the appeal, close to the amount of the original TANF that was done for 2 kids. His wages are being garnished for a portion of that TANF AND his current support. Even with interest his TANF would be LESS in his statement of TANF account.

When my husband called DCSE about this recent statement they told him a totally different amount. It was less than the statement but more than the final judgement. The point is that a portion of each payment is supposed to go to the PAST-DUE amount but it just keeps getting higher and soon they will probably intercept it from our taxes this year. We still have not gotten to the bottom of this TANF but the fact still remains that this government agency was able to file past-due and current child support for 2 children when they only had birth certificate and ss card for one child, and that alone is a serious mistake.

Sara
Charleston, South Carolina
U.S.A.