Re-applying for alimony

No matter how strange it may seem, in practice there are cases when the recipient of alimony voluntarily refuses it for various reasons. This could be a move to another country, an increase in the recipient's income, or the mother has remarried and no longer needs child support. But this does not mean that you will not be able to apply for alimony again in the future. Most often, situations arise when the refusal occurs by court decision. This case is more complex, so claimants are interested in whether it is possible to apply for alimony again? Let's look at each situation separately and what will be required of you to re-apply for alimony.

What is a re-filing for child support?

The legislation does not restrict a plaintiff who has been refused or who has withdrawn the writ of execution from re-submitting an application to the judicial authority for the purpose of collecting alimony. You can do this as follows:

1. Go to court a second time and re-apply for alimony. This situation occurs for those who did not complete the trial the first time and a decision was never made. This is possible when the plaintiff changes his mind about forced collection, or the defendant has circumstances such that he is currently unable to pay alimony. Also, the reason for re-applying is a violation of procedural legislation or making mistakes at the stage of the initial application.
2. Contact the bailiff service. If the writ of execution was issued by a judge in accordance with a positive decision on the collection of alimony, then you are not required to go to court again, since the court decision will be valid until the child comes of age. When contacting a bailiff, you only need to write a repeated application to initiate enforcement proceedings for alimony.

If you have previously received a court decision and have a writ of execution in your hands, then know that it does not have retroactive effect, so you can renew it at any time until the child turns 18 years old.

That is, the Civil Procedure Code allows not only the filing of a repeated application for alimony, but also multiple appeals. Therefore, if you are going to court for the first time to collect alimony, then immediately pay special attention to the correctness of the application and the package of required documents, so that they are relevant at the time of filing, and also contain evidence of the lack of maintenance by the father of the child. This is the only way to immediately get a positive decision.

Step-by-step instructions for re-collecting alimony through the court

The plaintiff, who has previously submitted documents, is familiar with all the stages of this procedure, and they do not differ much from each other:

The applicant must make copies of documents in advance:

1. Passports.
2. Birth certificates and divorce certificates (if available).
3. Certificates about family composition from the housing office at the place of registration.
4. Collect all receipts, checks, and other documents confirming the grounds for changing payments.

Please note: if possible, it is worth finding out the sources of income of the alimony payer.

This is especially important when the second parent is unofficially employed, is an entrepreneur, and has inconsistent earnings.

The most important step in this case is writing a statement of claim..

Sample statement of claim for alimony.

According to the Code of Civil Procedure, Article 126, the application must indicate the following data:

1. Name and address of the court.
2. Full name and place of residence of both parties.
3. Circumstances due to which a repeated application for alimony is submitted.
4. Listing of evidence.
5. The required amount of money to provide financial support for the child.

Next, you need to pay a state fee of 350 rubles, submit a package of documents to the court and wait for the court date to be set.

After the court hearing and after the deadline for appeal has expired, a court order is issued or a decision is made, which is handed over to the plaintiff in the court office.

In what cases is it possible to re-collect alimony?

We have already found out that you can apply for alimony collection more than once, but the purpose of the application is related to the reason for the initial refusal or other circumstances.

Is it possible to re-apply for alimony after refusing it?

In practice, there are also cases when a parent, of his own free will, during the judicial review process or after receiving a writ of execution, withdraws his claim. This situation is usually provoked by the applicant. Its refusal may be due to the following reasons:

• The forced collection of alimony from the father does not give the desired result, and the bailiffs cannot hold him accountable, so the applicant understands the pointlessness of going to court and wants to revoke the court decision;
• The parents decided to enter into a notarial alimony agreement among themselves;
• The income of the claimant allows him/her to support the child independently;
• The mother's relationship with the father is bad, so she does not want him to demand alimony payments from the child in old age and claim to participate in his upbringing;
• The potential alimony payer agreed with the claimant that he does not have the financial ability to help the child, but he will help in other ways.

That is, if, based on your application, you received a positive court decision and there is a writ of execution in your hands or already in the bailiff service, then you can revoke it at any time, and, if necessary, resume enforcement proceedings on alimony. But if the trial is not completed, then you are required not only to go to court a second time, but also to re-submit all the necessary documents and go through the stages of the trial until a decision is made.

Re-filing a statement of claim or resuming claim proceedings based on a writ of execution is impossible only in one case, when the refusal is drawn up in the form of a notarial document and certified by signatures.

Re-applying for alimony if new circumstances arise

But the defendant most often submits a second application under new circumstances. Since changes in his family life or health are directly related to the payment of alimony, he is therefore interested in petitioning either to reduce the amount of payments or in the order in which they are calculated. That is, even if a court decision has already been made, the defendant has the right, if the following circumstances exist, to file a new claim:

• Deterioration of health;
• Receiving disability;
• Serious documented costs associated with treatment;
• Temporary loss of ability to work, which directly affects income;
• Downsizing at work;
• The emergence of new dependents: parents, pregnant spouse or children from a new marriage;
• Reduction of additional income or its complete cessation, for example, rental payments, interest on a deposit.

Any of the above conditions must be supported by documented evidence. As for increasing child support payments, the initiative from the defendant rarely comes and a repeated claim for this purpose is usually filed by the claimant, that is, the parent with whom the child lives. However, it is also important here to prove the need to increase alimony - with certificates, hospital extracts, checks, receipts. Therefore, if you doubt whether you can file a claim again, if you are not satisfied with the amount or procedure of payments, then any lawyer will tell you that it is possible.

Repeated collection of alimony

A court decision on a writ of execution, according to general procedural rules, must be executed by bailiffs. They check the defendant’s property and his real material wealth. Bailiffs can seize property and even sell it in order to obtain the required amount to pay alimony, determined by the court.

In some cases, the mother is forced to refuse alimony, since her ex-husband may blackmail her with the right of the second parent to sign documents permitting travel to another country or to another place of residence.

To refuse alimony, a woman must write an application for refusal of maintenance to the bailiff service. After this, the enforcement proceedings are completed, the writ of execution is returned to the woman and the search for the defendant’s property and its sale are stopped.

According to the law, the completion of court proceedings is considered to have taken place from the moment the application for waiver of alimony is filed.

Worth remembering! Refusal of alimony does not deprive the plaintiff of the right to receive alimony again. The plaintiff can bring the writ of execution to the bailiffs again at any time. The court decision is valid until the child reaches the age of majority, unlike other writs of execution, the validity of which should not exceed more than three years.

In such a situation, alimony will begin to accrue from the moment the writ of execution is filed for the second time. The period when the document was in the possession of the plaintiff should not be taken into account by law.

Is it possible to re-apply for alimony to adjust its amount?

Art. 119 of the Family Code of the Russian Federation regulates situations when one of the parties wants to change the amount of alimony. There is a special procedure for this. With its help, you can increase or decrease the amount of maintenance established by the court. The law provides for the possibility of changing the financial situation of the plaintiff and defendant, both upward and downward.

Payments are reduced in the following cases:

• the emergence of high incomes for the child’s mother, which provide full support for the minor, and the poor financial situation of the father, when alimony for him becomes an unenforceable financial obligation;
• disability of the former spouse, which occurred after the divorce and entailed an increase in treatment costs along with the loss of a stable and large income.

Child support increases after circumstances are identified indicating that child support is not enough to support the children. The deterioration in the physical well-being of the parent with whom the minor child lives can also serve as an argument for increasing the amount of alimony.

What to do to officially change alimony payments?

If alimony is paid under a settlement agreement reached by the parties during pre-trial proceedings, then the agreement document should be rewritten and notarized. The revised agreement must be signed by both spouses. But this rarely happens in legal practice. More often, the amount of alimony has to be increased through the courts.

Only a judge can change the amount of alimony ordered by the court. To do this, you need to draw up a new statement of claim to change the amount of payment. Drawing up a claim is carried out according to the same rules as filing a statement of claim for the court to recover monetary payments from the second parent.

Need to remember! All documents for changing cash payments for child support must be filled out correctly, observing procedural standards and current laws. The plaintiff must support all grounds with reliable facts and arguments that are proven documented.

Required documents

When re-applying, the list of required documents does not differ much from the initial submission. So that you do not encounter problems or refusal to consider the case, you need not only to correctly draw up the application, but also to provide the required documents.

• Statement of claim in two copies;
• Parents' passports (if it is possible to provide the defendant's passport);
• Birth certificate of a minor child;
• Certificate of marriage or divorce, if an official marriage was concluded;
• Providing a certificate of income of the plaintiff and defendant (if possible);
• Certificate stating that the plaintiff lives together with a dependent;
• Receipt for payment of state duty.

The state fee will be charged only when the defendant files a repeated claim, for example, when alimony payments are reduced.

In addition to the above list of documents, you should understand that you may be required to provide additional papers if the judge has questions based on your application. Also, take care in advance of documents that will indicate the lack of assistance to the child from the second parent, and provide as complete information as possible in the application about the defendant - residential address, contacts, place of work. If you have any problems applying for alimony again, you can solve them through the Supreme Court website.

Submission order

As we found out, filing for alimony twice is a completely legal procedure. However, the procedure for filing an application depends on the specific case and how the previous legal proceedings ended. So, there are two options:

• Repeated appeal to court;
• Resumption of the enforcement case on the payment of alimony through the FSSP.

In the first case, you need to go to court with a repeated statement of claim and all the necessary documents, where you state your demand in order to receive alimony, change its amount or order. Usually, you file an application with the court for the second time when the last time the claim was not considered, you withdrew it of your own free will, or you were refused. The resubmission is no different from the initial submission.

If a court decision has already been made, and you received an enforcement decision in your hands, then re-filing a lawsuit with a similar request is no longer possible.

But in the second case, you need to contact the bailiff service when you already have a writ of execution, but you previously withdrew the enforcement proceedings, for example, due to the impossibility of collecting alimony from the payer or changed your mind. And now you want to bring the alimony payer to justice again. You will only need to write an application to the FSSP.

Thus, a claim can be filed in court an unlimited number of times, if you have not previously received a writ of execution for various reasons. And if a court decision has already been made, then re-submitting an application can only be associated with an increase/decrease or a change in the procedure for paying alimony. Otherwise, you no longer need to go to court; to resume the case of collecting alimony, you will only need the bailiff service.

Where to contact

Re-applying for alimony is carried out:

• to the court, if we are talking about a claim to change the amount of alimony;
• to the bailiff service at the location of the debtor, if we are talking about re-submitting a writ of execution.

It is also possible for the parties to jointly reapply to the notary, even if a refusal to collect alimony was previously concluded. However, in this case, such treatment should only be voluntary.

In the case where a refusal of a notarial agreement was previously concluded, the recipient has the right to apply to the court with a claim for the recovery of alimony. Such an application may be granted by the court, it all depends on the specific circumstances.

To court

Repeated appeal to the court is possible in the following situations:

• if the issue was initially resolved through a notarial agreement, then the parties renounced mutual rights and obligations;
• if the issue of changing the amount of alimony payments is being decided;

Re-filing a claim on the same issue is not provided for by current legislation.

To the bailiff service

You can contact the bailiff service as many times as you like. The recipient has the opportunity to suspend the enforcement proceedings by withdrawing the writ of execution or court order, and then send it again. The number of repeated applications is not limited; the right terminates only when the child support obligation ends, for example, if the child reaches the age of majority.