Driver's License Suspension//Child Support

 You can lose your license if you're 90 days behind on child support. It's not automatic, and there are lots of ways to avoid it, but it's possible.

The Family Financial Responsibility Act went into effect in 1996. Commonly called the "Deadbeats Don't Drive" law, it provides 3 ways your license can be suspended for non-support — and one for "visitation abuse."

The law distinguishes between not paying anything in 90 days —being delinquent — and being a total of 90 days behind on support. Those will often overlap, but not always.

If you're delinquent, your license can be suspended if a judge holds you in contempt, or if the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) asks the Secretary of State to suspend your license.

(The HFS regulations say they won't ask unless you're $2,500 and 90 days behind.)

Being held in contempt, or having a judge order the suspension without contempt, both require that there be a court order for child support. Those child support orders will, therefore, be public records, at the circuit clerk's office.

The suspension that HFS can request only requires the kind of "administrative" child support order that HFS can set as a state agency. That order will just be at the HFS office, and not a public record. That's how it's possible to have a child support order without a court case. #childsupport, #driverslicensesuspensionchildsupport,