Podcast: How the Ontario Family Responsibility Office Works
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In this transcribed interview with Dale Goldhawk of Zoomer Radio AM740 in Toronto, family and divorce lawyer Lorne Fine of Fine & Associates Professional Corporation explains how the Ontario Family Responsibility Office collects child support and alimony. Read the interview below, or listen to the podcast at the bottom of the page.
Family Law Podcast: The Family Responsibility Office (FRO)
Goldhawk Fights Back Podcast: Recorded July 31, 2013
Dale: All right. We’re going to talk now about family law and divorce law and in order to do that, of course, we have Lorne Fine in the studio. Did you bring your law book?
Lorne: I do.
Dale: Yes, you did. Okay. You have it right there so we can answer all the questions. We will give everyone an opportunity to talk further about young Sammy Yatim, and what happened in the streetcar shooting. For now we want to move on and talk a bit about divorce law and in particular, the area, Lorne, that you want to focus on today was child support payments and enforcing those payments, right?
Lorne: Right. The Family Responsibility Office. What it is…
Dale: Yeah. The FRO, the famous FRO, yeah.
Lorne: That’s right. What it is, what it does and explain to the listeners the nature of the FRO.
Dale: Okay.
Lorne: What is the FRO? The FRO is a government agency that administers all child and spousal support court orders and support agreements. It’s a free agency for the most part. There’s some filing fees, here and there, but it’s a free agency for the most part. It automatically enforces support orders. I know you like statistics, so I’ll give you some statistics.
Dale: Please. I love them.
Lorne: Okay. FRO handles over 180,000 cases a year. It represents 400,000 people collects $650 million in support and 97 percent of all payers are overseen by FRO. FRO employs over 400 people. It is a big government agency dealing with a lot of money and for the most part, it’s very effective. Its greatest strength is how they can enforce support orders and support agreement at no cost to the recipient. That’s why it’s very effective. There’s all kinds of things that FRO can do to enforce support.
Dale: I’m old enough as a journalist to remember back to a time when most of the comments about the FRO were not good. They were negative because people would go there and not much was done, but I also remember that was before the Family Responsibility Office got additional teeth and help in order to really make that difference. That difference is really quite profound.
Lorne: Right. Computers have been updated, more staff, like, any big government agency, there’s going to be glitches, there’s going to be problems. Can you imagine if every support recipient had to enforce their own support order without any help and there’s other jurisdictions where that’s the case. That would be just horrible, right?
Dale: In the main it wouldn’t work very well if at all.
Lorne: There would be additional cost for a recipient to enforce their own support order or support agreement, so it’s a free service for the most part.
Dale: What kind of power do they have then? Talk a bit about that. The teeth they have now.
Lorne: They have a lot of teeth. They have a lot of teeth.
Dale: All right. Let’s talk about the teeth.
Lorne: What’s important for the listeners to know is that FRO only enforces support orders. It doesn’t interpret support orders. It’s not going to guess what the order says.
Dale: Got to come from the judge.
Lorne: Has to come from the judge. It’s not going to vary a support order. In other words, if there’s a change in circumstances, you can’t go to FRO and say, oh, there’s been a change, change my order. FRO is going to say, go to court. Right?
Dale: Right, of course.
Lorne: They…
Dale: So they’ve…all these claims have been examined by a judge. A judge has Okay’d the enforcement order. Then it’s up to the Family Responsibility Office to enforce it. Act like a police.
Lorne: Right. They are not going to interpret it or try to guess what it says. Whatever it says, it says. It’s not just court orders, it’s also support agreements. A person can take a separation agreement and they can file it with the court, it becomes a court order and then enforce it through FRO. So, it’s not just court orders, it’s also…
Dale: It still has to go through the courts.
Lorne: It still has to through the court system.
Dale: Okay. Just to make sure they’re legitimate obviously. Right? Okay.
Lorne: Enforcement mechanisms, what FRO can do. FRO can A, garnish back accounts. It can take 50 percent of your bank account to pay arrears of support. It can garnish any money that’s owing to you. If the CRA owes you money, tax refunds, EI, CPP, whatever, they can take it. They can garnish your income. They go to your employer and then say he owes support, this is how much he owes and tell the employer you have to pay. If the employer doesn’t pay the employer is going to be liable so the employer pays.
Dale: It’s not a good thing for your boss to be approached with these garnish orders on behalf of one of your employees either.
Lorne: Well, some people are embarrassed. Some people prefer that it not be enforced by FRO. They don’t want their employer to know, but it’s automatically enforced by FRO unless both parties agree to opt out. Both parties have to agree, okay FRO won’t enforce the support order. Now, a big power the FRO has is suspending driver’s license.
Dale: That’s a handy tool. Nothing beats that.
Lorne: Yes, it’s very handy, very handy. No one likes getting their driver’s license…
Dale: Only the 407 and FRO really have that power up front. It’s great isn’t it? Now how long have they had that? Do you know off hand?
Lorne: How long have they had that power?
Dale: How long have they had the ability to yank your, not renew your driver’s license?
Lorne: I’m not sure, but it’s a powerful mechanism.
Dale: From your experience that’s quite a powerful…
Lorne: Yes. It gets the payor’s attention very quickly. Of course they say, how can they suspend my driver’s license, then I can’t work, and then I can’t pay support and how is that fair, but it facilitates movement. If there is arrears, they give you notice and they say you have to satisfy your arrears or make an agreement with us to pay the arrears. You have to do something or we’re taking away your driver’s license. Or you got to go to court and say why you don’t owe the money, to change it. That’s a very effective power that they have.
Dale: I have heard many stories in past years about a number of, usually men, but not always, usually men who would quit their jobs rather than pay. Then I guess throw themselves in the mercy of the court and say, hey, I haven’t got a job, I’m not going…it doesn’t work.
Lorne: It doesn’t work.
Dale: Well, what would the judge say, go get yourself a job and start paying?
Lorne: Yeah. Yeah. Judges have heard it all. They’ve seen it all. You’re not going to do something a judge hasn’t heard. They’re bright individuals. You can’t just quit your job. If you quit your job they’re going to say you were making say $50,000, you quit your job? Well, we’re going to say you’re still making $50,000. You can find another job where you’re making $50,000. If you get laid off that’s another story. If you get laid off that’s a different situation.
Dale: You could go to court to vary the order I guess if suddenly you found yourself with much less.
Lorne: That’s right. That’s right.
Dale: If you can prove it.
Lorne: That’s right. You can always if there’s a change in your circumstances, a material change in your income, your health, whatever that affects your ability to pay, you could always go to court and vary the court order. Back to mechanisms of enforcement. To go back to driver’s license, what’s important for listeners to know is that there’s strict time limits. FRO will say you have to start an application within X amount of days. If you don’t meet that deadline, there’s nothing the court can do. There are very strict deadlines. When someone gets a notice and someone comes to me and says, oh, I got a note from FRO, I’ve got two days to do this. That means two days, right?
Dale: That means two days. That doesn’t mean maybe two days.
Lorne: No. That doesn’t mean you get an extension. That’s two days. When you get notice from FRO, it’s serious and…
Dale: That is the telephone call from Revenue Canada [inaudible 08:31].
Lorne: Don’t treat it lightly. Do something about it. People think it’s going to go away, it’s not going to go away. Another effective mechanism is suspending your passport. I’ve had that before. I’ve had calls from somebody who’s overseas who all of a sudden finds their passport is not effective because…
Dale: So, they’ve been suspended while they’re out of the country?
Lorne: Yeah. Yeah. It happens.
Dale: What a jackpot that would be, getting back in, right?
Lorne: Yes, it can be a nightmare. A support order is an order, a judgment like any other order. Somebody the payor owes the recipient money and the recipient can, let’s say its arrears of $5,000, FRO can go and get a writ of seizure and sale like any judgment. A writ of seizure and sale, file that writ of seizure and sale, and that person, the payor, can’t sell property, can’t mortgage property, can’t do anything, until that writs paid.
Dale: So it sits there on the books as it were.
Lorne: It sits there.
Dale: 416-360-0740 or 866-740-4740 if you have some questions about this particular aspect of family law, divorce law. It’s certainly one of the most contentious issues, the support of the kids. Isn’t it?
Lorne: It is for some people, yes. Some people I think support for the spouse, is probably more contentious than support for the kids.
Dale: You think so?
Lorne: I think so, yeah. People get their backs up when it comes to spousal support more than child support. FRO is very effective and very powerful and it’s something that people should be aware of.
Dale: Do we do better than other provinces? You seemed to indicate that a little earlier, with this Family Responsibility Office.
Lorne: I’m not aware of any other province that doesn’t have some government agency.
Dale: Something to do right?
Lorne: Some kind of effective mechanism. I think we’re certainly better off with it than without it. There’s going to be errors and problems. I read in 2012 there was an error that FRO recognized, that the fathers over paid support because when the federal child support guidelines were introduced, there was there’s no automatic adjustment cost of living adjustment. Every year you’re supposed to readjust your support and there’s no automatic adjustment of support. FRO didn’t adjust the payor’s records, so all these fathers overpaid support because they were paying cost of living adjustment and the errors were $5.3 million.
Dale: Oh, really?
Lorne: Yeah. The tax payers had to pay to cover that overpayment to give credit to the payors because they overpaid support. There’s going to be glitches. FRO recognized it and corrected it. For the most part it works.
Dale: Do you think it’s had the effect of more of the supporting spouses are now paying child and spousal support rather than going through the whole FRO process? I mean has it been a bit of a deterrent about not paying?
Lorne: Well, I think firstly, it’s automatic. If there’s a court order it’s automatic unless both parties opt out. One party, the payor will say I’ll give you postdated checks, please don’t go through FRO and the recipient will say, no, I want to go through FRO, in many cases. Unless there’s a lot of trust between the parties and they have a good relationship then they’ll opt out, but most cases it’s automatic. There’s no incentive for the recipient to opt out. It’s a free service.
Dale: Well, who would ever opt out? I guess if there was a good relationship between the spouses that would work, but if there’s such a good relationship, why are they getting divorced?
Lorne: Well, some people get divorced and they realize they shouldn’t be spouses and they’re friends and they separate.
Recording: Goldhawk Fights Back for You airs Monday to Friday 11:00 to 1:00 on AM740 Zoomer Radio.
Dale: Lorne Fine is here our Family and Divorce Lawyer answering questions on those topics and we have Marissa on the line from Toronto. Marissa, what’s your question for Lorne Fine?
Marissa: My question is if there was a support agreement in place and now the person stopped working and the court, they didn’t know where the person was to enforce the support payment. Your kids are all grown now and all that money is in arrears. You had to take of your kids all these years by yourself, is that still in effect and can you still?
Dale: Okay. That’s a good question. What about that kind of thing, Lorne?
Lorne: If there is an agreement in place and the payor, just simply stopped working and the arrears accumulated and there’s no variation?
Marissa: Right.
Lorne: FRO can still enforce that. You just have to provide FRO with information that you may obtain regarding the payor. They’re not going to investigate where the payor is, there’s only so much they can do, but if you tell them the address where he is or you can, does he drive? Does the payor drive?
Marissa: He does, but he has a license list, put it that way.
Lorne: You can, there’s certain agencies that can do a driver’s license search and find out where the person lives and you may have to do some investigation. The more information you give FRO, the better off you’ll be.
Marissa: I think he has family members who are willing to give that information.
Dale: To blow the whistle as it were.
Lorne: Oh, that’s fine. The more information you give FRO, the better off you are.
Dale: The point is, Marissa’s original question is…
Marissa: …is there a contact number for that?
Dale: Sorry?
Marissa: Is there a contact number for FRO?
Dale: I don’t know.
Lorne: I don’t have it.
Dale: We’ll get one up for you. Keep listening.
Lorne: If you go online, do a search online for Family Responsibility Office. There’s a home page and there’s all kinds of information.
Dale: But Marissa’s original question was I mean just because the kids grew up and moved away and he doesn’t have a job does not mean that the debt is extinguished. It’s still there.
Lorne: The debt’s still there. Let’s say the kids were entitled to support for the last five years. He would have to go to court and vary those arrears for the period of time when they’re not entitled support, but for the period of time when they were entitled to support, it’s certainly effective. It’s not extinguished. If the kids are dependent and they’re still entitled to support and the order or the agreement is not varied, FRO will enforce it.
Dale: All right. Marissa, thanks very much. I hope that helps. Mary, maybe we can get a FRO number up here. We can get that out at least. Here’s Martin on his cell phone. Martin, do you have a question?
Martin: Yes. I wanted to find out, I’m paying alimony payments, there is no kids in the marriage since 1988, I never missed a payment of $350 a month. I paid out in a pension plan at CP Rowe when I worked for them. I gave her the pension [inaudible 15:39] was done on it. I’m wanting now that I’m retired and on pension and I was only married to her for 13 years, no kids. I paid for 26 years, $4200 a year I paid.
I’m wanting now, if I can have that varied because my new wife has had kidney failure, has lost her job. There’s been a material change in circumstances and my wages have been reduced. She’s also had $46,000 that I gave her to invest. She doesn’t drive, she might smoke, lives in an apartment, has never remarried. I’m wondering if I have a chance to vary that order.
The question is, the most important question is, after I retired, now after retirement, ten years I’ve been retired, and paid her out and she invested that money. Is there any chance that I can get rid of my alimony payment to my spouse? She makes $1700 a month and eligible for all [inaudible 16:35] security coming up in about two years?
Dale: What kind of story would that be for a judge to hear do you think Lorne?
Lorne: Well, it certainly sounds like there’s been a change in your circumstances and if there’s a change in your circumstances the support can be varied. It sounds like when you separated, she also got a part of your pension, right?
Martin: That is correct.
Lorne: Now, you’re in receipt of pension income?
Martin: That is correct.
Lorne: There is a concept called double dipping. She can’t get a piece of your pension when you separated and then get a piece of your pension when you’re retired and that’s your source of income. Right?
Martin: But I won’t…
Lorne: I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Martin: That’s what I wanted to hear. Lorne said [inaudible 17:12] that’s what I want to hear. I’ve never missed a payment.
Lorne: All right. That’s good. A judge always wants to see you going to court with clean hands. A judge wants to see that you’re a good payor, you respect court orders, you obey them. It sounds to me like there’s been a material change and there’s grounds to vary, but you have to go to court and vary it, unless she wants to go to court and do it voluntarily. Unless she does it voluntarily. Maybe if you contact her, maybe she’ll be reasonable and maybe you can have an agreement.
Martin: No, she doesn’t want to be reasonable. She looks at it as I can claim it at the end of the year. She doesn’t want to do it. Her parents passed away and I had nothing against her parents, but she more likely got from the estate, probably another $100,000.
Lorne: Okay.
Martin: She’s lost that. She quit smoking and I did to pay this $350. I just went cold turkey and quit smoking cigarettes [inaudible 17:59] and I did it. You don’t need medicine to quit. You have an…
Dale: All right. Okay. All right. Thanks for that additional message Martin, but it sounds to me like that would be a pretty good story to tell. That would be a rather…
Lorne: It does. That’s common. There’s an agreement that was reached when the person is working. Then they retire and there’s been a change.
Dale: Things do change. Financial situations change. Would her financial situation have any bearing on it at all? I mean…
Lorne: Maybe she’s sick. Maybe…
Dale: Yeah. Yeah. You don’t know.
Lorne: You don’t know.
Dale: You don’t know the kind of counter arguments that might come. 416-360-0740 or 866-740-4740. Lorne Fine is here, our Family and Divorce Lawyer answering questions about same. Here is David on the line from Hamilton. David, you have a question?
David: I have a question for Lorne please? It happened to me that girl that I met one time and then she got pregnant and she didn’t want to do whatever and she had a baby. I’m paying for the past 13 years, $200 a month and I never seen the baby and she got remarried already, but to when do I have to pay her, to 18? When does it stop?
Dale: Okay.
Lorne: Well, it’s going to keep on going. You’re the father. Are you sure you’re the father of this child?
David: Yes. She went to do the test and yes, I am the father.
Lorne: The mere fact of you being the biological father of the child means that you have a support obligation. The support obligation is going to continue regardless of whether the mother has remarried. The support is going to continue as long as the child is dependent, maybe the first postsecondary degree, maybe longer. It depends on the whether the child is still dependent on her parents.
David: How do I find out? How do I find out how depended she is? What do I do? How do I know?
Lorne: Well, your child is now, you said 13 years old?
David: Right.
Lorne: The child’s still dependent.
Dale: Yeah, I would say, she’s got a ways to go.
Lorne: You got away to go.
David: To 18? To 20 or more?
Lorne: No, there’s no magic number.
Dale: Well, no, say, for example, David, what if she goes to university, your obligation would continue because she would still be a dependent person. You’d have to be able to demonstrate or prove someday that she was independently living on her own and then the obligation would be generally over. Is that right?
Lorne: Yes, it depends. She may go to get a BA. She may get a law degree, right? She may keep going, right?
Dale: A law degree, yeah, that would be a fine safety cap.
Lorne: Or a doctor, right? She may…
David: For the rest of my life…
Dale: Well, no. Not the rest of your life, I mean…
Lorne: Eventually your child grows up and eventually your child is no longer dependent, but there’s no magic age.
Dale: Yeah. Okay.
David: But F-R-O doesn’t know if she’s dependent or not?
Lorne: FRO does not know. All FRO knows is that there is a court order enforcing it and it’s up to you to try to change it.
Dale: Yeah, you can try vary it. You can do your own detective work and FRO collects when collecting is deemed to be the thing to do. Right?
Lorne: I think you have a ways to go.
David: Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you.
Dale: All right, David. Yeah, 13! Good grief. That could be another ten years or more. I hate to say that, if David’s still listening to the radio, but that’s another ten years, but that’s the responsibility.
Lorne: That’s the way it goes.
Dale: I mean you can feel empathy on all sides of the issues like this. These could be very difficult and somewhat…
Lorne: Well, the courts going to feel empathy for the child, not for the payor. That’s what child support is about.
Dale: Yeah. Exactly.
Lorne: The court takes the position that the support is for the child so he’s going to have a long ways to go before it ends.
Dale: 416-360-0740 or 866-740-4740. That’s child support and we’ve probably talked about this before, it escapes me at the moment, that is probably one of the biggest single issues that you would deal with as a lawyer acting in these cases.
Lorne: Child support and spousal support. It’s very common and these types of issues of terminating support or varying support are very common, but…
Dale: I would think frequently those orders are varied because circumstances change or people just want to argue the case or whatever, that that’s a large bone of contention in things, trying to get…
Lorne: Right. Someone retiring that’s a good grounds to vary. Prove a child is not dependent is a little bit more difficult. As long as the child is going to school, applying his self or herself a judge is reluctant to terminate support.
Dale: Well as long as the child was attending say a regular recognized say postsecondary education, you’d have no grounds for saying, oh, well, she’s not working hard enough.
Lorne: Some parents try to say, they’re not taking a full course load or their marks aren’t high enough. They’re not doing well.
Dale: A judge isn’t going to buy that is he?
Lorne: Very unlikely. Not a strong argument.
Dale: Of course, you can argue anything in court until you’re told you can’t. Right?
Lorne: You can try anything.
Dale: Isn’t that the beauty of the law?
Lorne: The risk
Dale: The risk of it all…
Lorne: The risk is that you lose and then you have to pay legal fees for the other side.
Dale: On top of…
Lorne: On top of your legal fees.
Dale: If you lose paying your opponents legal fees is hardly out of the question, hardly unusual.
Lorne: That’s right. That’s right. That’s the difference between us and the States. Here, you’re right, you can argue whatever you want just you’re taking a risk…
Dale: Because you might end up paying.
Lorne: That’s right.
Recording: Goldhawk Fights Back for You airs Monday to Friday 11:00 to 1:00 on AM740 Zoomer Radio.
Dale: 12:46 Lorne Fine is here answering your questions about family law. Here is Kathy on her cell phone. Kathy, do you have a question?
Kathy: Here’s the question. We’re helping my son by a house with his partner, wife, or whatever we call her and we’re going to set it up that they pay the mortgage, the taxes, and everything through us. Everything is in our name. If something happened and they separated what happens to that house? Is it still ours or does it become a matrimonial issue?
Dale: That’s an interesting…
Lorne: Are you putting money down on the house?
Kathy: Yes. We’re doing the down payment, the closing costs.
Lorne: You’re actually paying for the house?
Kathy: Yes.
Lorne: Okay. The definition of a matrimonial home is a house where somebody has a proprietary interest in the house. If you have an interest in the house, if somebody made improvements into the house, renovations into the house, there’s an argument that it could be a matrimonial home. You’re best to have some type of landlord tenant agreement with them to demonstrate that it’s simply a landlord tenant situation and this is what they’re paying. They’re paying the taxes and they’re paying the mortgage in lieu of rent to you. You should have some type of agreement.
Kathy: Okay.
Lorne: Okay?
Kathy: Thank you very much. That was very clear.
Dale: All right. Okay. That could be a dicey situation for lots of reasons.
Lorne: Yeah. It happens a lot.
Dale: Our Wills and Estates Lawyer is always cautioning people in terms of marriages. If you’re leaving money to your daughter, make sure you don’t necessarily and automatically leave money to your son-in-law because what if they get divorced and then would he still have a claim if they come to the point where they hate each other and on and on; just a matter of human relations all of these things isn’t it?
Lorne: It’s difficult to have an agreement with your son and your daughter-in-law. No one expects the worst, but realistically…
Dale: You’ve got to be prepared.
Lorne: Yes. It’s necessity.
Dale: Yeah, yeah. These things can become huge issues later.
Lorne: It happens all the time.
Dale: Here’s Debbie on the line from Mississauga. Debbie, do you have a question for Lorne Fine?
Debbie: I do. I’d like to know what do you do when you feel like you’ve exhausted all avenues with FRO? You’ve gone down every avenue with them to collect support and you know that the support payor has learned to play the system?
Lorne: Okay. When you say play the system, in what sense?
Debbie: You have your driver’s license suspended, but they still drive. They’ve been threatened to go to be thrown into jail, they make one payment, and then you have to go through the whole process of starting over again once they made that one payment.
Lorne: Well, I don’t think one payment is going to deal with the arrears depending upon how much your arrears are. If there’s a default hearing that’s pretty serious.
Kathy: There has been a default hearing. The arrears are well over $25,000. He somehow made it that he makes a payment every three months. Once the three months comes and he hasn’t made a payment then FRO starts, once I’ve called every month and I have to stay on them every single month so that the file stays open and they do get annoyed when I call. They say, you know we’re not here to babysit him. He has a responsibility that he needs to be taking care of this himself.
Dale: Yeah, but they have a responsibility to try and collect it, don’t they?
Lorne: Keep calling.
Kathy: I agree with you, but it’s frustrating when they make you feel bad.
Lorne: Well, you shouldn’t feel bad by calling FRO. It’s their mandate to enforce support orders and if the payor, he sounds like he’s a pretty slippery guy.
Dale: He knows how to game the system, right?
Lorne: There’s some people like that.
Kathy: He has learned to play it very, very, well.
Lorne: Well, you could try to opt out of the system and enforce it yourself, but I think that would be more difficult.
Kathy: It would absolutely be the biggest mistake to try and do that. At least when the threat of jail does come, he gets that order that he’s going to go to jail, he makes one payment. Sometimes one payment in a year is better than no payment at all.
Lorne: Well, I don’t think a court is going to be satisfied with one payment a year to defeat that kind of… We didn’t say that, in a default hearing a judge could sentence somebody up to 180 days in jail.
Kathy: He’s been threatened with the three weeks and that’s as far as they’ve gotten and then he made the payment to pay three months’ worth and then that stopped. It was supposed to continue. He was supposed to continue it on his own accord, which he doesn’t and then the whole things starts all over and then they have to start with the…they just don’t go, boom, okay, let’s go back to throwing him in jail, we have to start from the beginning again.
Dale: Yeah, work your way up…
Lorne: Once he gets back to the judge again and the judge sees what he did before it’s not going to be pleasant for him. I would think.
Dale: He just manages to stay one step ahead of FRO It seems as he goes along here, right?
Kathy: Absolutely.
Lorne: Like you said, it’s better than doing it yourself, so keep with the system. Keep doing what you’re doing and eventually he will get what’s coming to him.
Kathy: I hope so. I hope it’s in this lifetime though.
Dale: Debbie, thanks.
Kathy: Thank you so much for answering my question.
Lorne: My pleasure.
Dale: Thanks, Debbie. Debbie’s living proof of the fact that even though they do collect a lot of money, it ain’t necessarily the easiest thing you want to go through. Right?
Lorne: Some people like this payor seems to be a slippery guy and some people are like that.
Dale: Gee, there are hardly any of those guys out there, the slippery guy?
Lorne: Yeah, it’s the guys who are self-employed and they’re working under the table, you don’t know where they’re working, how much they’re making.
Dale: Yeah. Or they have millions of dollars and they spend a good appreciable amount of that hiring their own lawyers to offer counter arguments and obstacles every step of the way.
Lorne: That’s not very common though.
Dale: Well, there aren’t that many millionaires. You know what I’m saying? It can happen. That’s all I’m saying.
Lorne: It can happen.
Dale: Be careful if you’re going to marry a millionaire. Right?
Lorne: Right.
Dale: I guess. Do you have much responsibility as a lawyer with the Family Responsibility Office yourself? Can you call up and say, what about file number blah, blah, blah, or do they just not want to talk to guys like you.
Lorne: I think when a lawyer calls another lawyer you can get through to them. When a recipient pays you got to go through a worker, you get voicemail, it’s harder to get through. Yes, it’s easier for me to pick up the phone and call one of the lawyers and say, this is the case, what do you think about this case and so on. I know the head counsel for FRO. So, I will call him up and say, hey, what about this, what do you think and I get an answer. If a recipient’s having problems, get a lawyer. Maybe your lawyer can help you resolve the issue.
Dale: Lawyers who work in that particular section of the law as you say and as you’re demonstrating by what you’re saying. You guys know each other. There maybe things that you can get done on a semi-official basis without arguing something in court for a couple of days that might help.
Lorne: Maybe you can negotiate a resolution. You still have to go to court to solidify the resolutions…
Dale: I know you have to go to court, but at least if you’re going to court carrying a document that says, here your honor, this is what we want to do and then all she has to do is say yay or nay. It’s that simple.
Lorne: It’s not always that simple, but it’s always best, I think to get a lawyer because it’s very difficult for people to be self-represented or do it themselves, try to…
Dale: Isn’t that a common complaint that we hear all the time in so many different areas of law, people can’t afford to hire lawyers.
Lorne: They can’t afford lawyers.
Dale: They’re out there arguing their own cases and they’re not really helping their own situation.
Lorne: If people can’t afford a lawyer, that’s unfortunate, but that’s the fact and they have to go argue it themselves or maybe apply for legal-aid. See if you qualify for legal-aid. It’s usually those people who don’t qualify for legal-aid, the middle class who can afford a lawyer…
Dale: Well, that’s right. They make too much money to qualify for legal aid and yet they’re going to be bankrupt trying to pay a lawyer.
Lorne: It’s true. Sometimes, let’s say you can’t afford a lawyer to act for you throughout a whole process, you can still call a lawyer for maybe consultations. Can you help me on a piece meal basis? Can you help me bit by bit? Help me draft something. Let’s discuss process. Maybe you’re not paying a lawyer full-time to deal with the matter, but maybe you’re paying a lawyer just to help you occasionally. It is certainly better to have help than to not have help.
Dale: How do family court judges react when the client comes into the court room not represented by a lawyer?
Lorne: Do they have sympathy?
Dale: Do they have sympathy? Are they…
Lorne: It depends on the judge.
Dale: As a journalist I’ve seen both happen. I’ve seen it where the judge is absolutely exasperated…
Lorne: Right. It depends on the judge. Judges are people too. Sometimes they don’t have no sympathy for the person, other times they may.
Dale: The point is you are entitled to represent yourself. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but there’s nothing in law that says you cannot.
Lorne: Right. Anybody can go in and act on their own behalf. I could go into court and act on my own behalf, but …
Dale: Well, you’re a lawyer…
Lorne: But a lawyer who acts for himself has a fool for a client. Right?
Dale: I heard that.
Lorne: I would never act for myself. You’re too emotionally involved. You’re not objective. There’s been situations where…
Dale: You’re liable to stand up and blurt, that’s not true your honor. Right? I could just see that happening.
Lorne: That’s a lie.
Dale: Here’s Audrey on the line from Elliston. Audrey, you have a question for Lorne Fine?
Audrey: A father got a judgment against a son involving money a few years ago and it’s never been paid and the father is gone now. So what happens with this judgment?
Lorne: The judgment is an asset that would vest in the estate. If the judgment happened some time ago, there should have been a writ of seizure and sale filed against the son.
Audrey: No.
Lorne: There never was?
Audrey: No.
Lorne: Okay. That should have been done because like we said earlier, the writ would be filed and it stays there until it’s satisfied.
Dale: So, that’s something an executor would have to deal with and on the disbursal…
Lorne: I would think it’s an asset.
Dale: Yeah.
Lorne: He gets an asset for the estate.
Audrey: As the mother, what if I just want to do away with it now, can I do that? How do I do that?
Lorne: Well, I think that’s something for an estate lawyer to answer.
Audrey: I see.
Dale: That’s more Wills and Estate Lawyer…
Lorne: Yeah. That’s more of a Wills and Estate Lawyer because I don’t know why the father sued the son and what the relationship is between you and your son, who the beneficiaries are of the estate. It depends there’s a lot of questions to be answered, but I think you should go speak to an estate’s lawyer.
Dale: Especially, if it’s a reasonable amount of money, you should not let it hang, right.
Lorne: Yeah. It’s an asset for the estate.
Audrey: Thank you.
Dale: Audrey, thanks very much for your thoughts and your question. Did we find a number for the Family Responsibility Office? Oh, here it is. Here’s the number. Get your pens and your pencils kids. Let’s go. Here we are, everybody ready? Hurry up, grab that pencil. Here’s the Family Responsibility Toll Free Number, 1-800-267-7263.
Lorne: Now, it’s important when you call FRO, there’s so many cases, you need to know your file number.
Dale: You got to have a file number.
Lorne: You got to have a file number. There not going to look to see what file we’re talking about…so you need the file number.
Dale: Hi, I’m Bob, do you know what’s going on with my case? You can’t do that. Yeah, okay. That’s true of calling any official agency.
Lorne: It’s a huge organization.
Dale: Yeah, calling them is what you have to do from time to time. Lorne, thanks very much for coming in…
Lorne: Thank you for having me.
Dale: …and answering all those difficult questions will see you again soon.
Lorne: I hope so.
Dale: All right. Oh, you will. Lorne Fine, he’s our Family and Divorce Lawyer right here on Goldhawk Fights Back For You, where the man with hook is here. I got to go.
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