With Father’s Day finally here, it is a good day to be reminded of all of the fathers out there that work hard and provide for their children. Unfortunately for some Texas fathers, they eventually discover that these sacrifices may have been in vain when they find out a child they have been supporting for years actually isn’t theirs. For these men, there is now a new law in Texas that allows them to terminate their child support payments if they can prove they are not actually the father of the child.
New Texas Child Support Law
According to the Attorney General of Texas, the Child Support Division collected $3.1 billion in child support payments last year, which mostly came from fathers. As the number indicates, this is a lot of money and men who may be paying hundreds of dollars a month may like to be excluded from this number in the future.
Under the new law in Texas, men who previously were considered the father of a child – and paying child support – can now petition the court to end the parent-child relationship if they can prove with a DNA paternity test that they are not the father of the child.
However, there is a limited time for some men to seek this remedy from the court. If they knew before September 1, 2011 that they were not the biological father of the child they only have until September 1, 2012 to ask the court to terminate the relationship and end their child support obligations.
With the child support obligations and parent-child relationship terminated, mothers are free to seek child support from the biological father that should have been paying in the first place.
Source: CW 33 News-Dallas/Fort Worth, “Some Men Could Soon No Longer Pay Child Support,” Daniel Novick, June 13, 2012