185 - SupportPay - Enabling Parents to Manage Child Support & Share Expenses – Directly with Each Other
Leh
Meriwether: Welcome,
everyone. I'm Leh Meriwether and with me is Todd Orston. We are your co-hosts
for Divorce Team Radio, a show sponsored by the Divorce and Family Law Firm of
Meriwether & Tharp. Here you'll learn about divorce, family law, and from
time to time, even tips on how to save your marriage if it's in the middle of a
crisis. If you want to read more about us, you can always check us out online
at atlantadivorceteam.com. Well, Todd, we got a good show today.
Todd Orston: We have a good show every
day.
Leh
Meriwether: That's true.
Todd Orston: Well, not every day, but
yeah. You know what I mean.
Leh
Meriwether: Every time we got
a good show.
Todd Orston: Absolutely. Absolutely. All
right.
Leh
Meriwether: One of the things
that we've already seen of this year, if there was a positive note to 2020,
we've seen how technology can keep things going. It can be a pain in the butt
sometimes, but it can keep things going, and in many cases, make our lives
better. And I mean, we see a lot with Zoom hearings, I mean, the court system
kept going forward with virtual hearings. And I know they've been doing jury
trials, but they were doing other hearings to keep things going forward. And
recently, we learned about a software that could help people with child
support.
Todd Orston: Even make the payments for
you and like, you don't...
Leh
Meriwether: Well no, it helps
you make the payments.
Todd Orston: Oh, okay. All right.
Leh
Meriwether: So you ready to
talk about the software?
Todd Orston: I am absolutely ready.
Leh
Meriwether: Because, to your
point, I will say that tools like this where, of course, it's kind of weird for
us to say we get excited about this kind of stuff. But the reason we get
excited is because, I think I speak for both of us, I can't tell you how many
people call us because they have gotten into some level of trouble. And by
that, I mean in the context of they've failed to do something they were
supposed to do, a contempt has been filed, and oftentimes it's avoidable. It's
just a matter of you may not be managing things properly. And a tool,
especially a tool like what we're going to be talking about today, can be so
incredibly impactful, and what it's going to hopefully do is avoid those
problems that drag you back into court and, potentially, open you up to
sanctions.
Todd Orston: Just because I wouldn't
want people to sanction you for doing a terrible job discussing this great new
software platform, I brought on somebody to talk about this platform.
Leh
Meriwether: Surprise!
Todd Orston: So with us is Erika Anne
Englund, and she is the chief of strategy for SupportPay, the world's only
financial platform that manages child support payments, expenses, and
reimbursements. She brings a diverse skill set from her professional background
as an attorney, mediator, law professor, and private consultant for emerging
tech company. Erika has successfully mediated over 5,000 hours of disputes,
she's trained litigation attorneys and financial planners in negotiation
skills, and she's created the nation's first law school practicum course in ADR
career. She is nationally recognized as a leader in the field of cooperative
divorce and dispute resolution, and she has been a two-time speaker at the
Sacramento Women's Exposition, has been featured in the Washington Post, the
Sacramento News & Review, Divorce TV, and the Blended Family podcast. She
has two children, ages seven and nine, who provide a welcome opportunity to
practice dispute resolution skills on a daily basis. And all of them are
currently making clumsy attempts to learn to play the piano. Well, Erika,
thanks so much for coming on the show.
Erika
Englund: It's lovely to
be here with you.
Todd Orston: I'm glad we didn't scare
you off with all the technology problems we had getting this show going.
Erika
Englund: Not scared at
all. I'm fearless with technology these days, so just happy to be here with
you. And thanks for that wonderful introduction. I feel much better about
myself already.
Leh
Meriwether: Maybe not about
the piano skills, but yeah, other than that, I think everything was pretty
positive.
Erika
Englund: The piano
skills, it's a crime against music. But we'll get there.
Todd Orston: I first noticed, Erika,
your new role through LinkedIn, because you had this hilarious post where, when
I was first reading it, I was like, "Did she get a divorce?" What she
decided to do is make a change, and take her skill set to help arguably even
more people around the country by becoming the chief of strategy for
SupportPay. So I really appreciate your writing style. I was really pulled into
the article, and it was very well written.
Erika
Englund: Well, thank
you. But it's exactly how it felt, and for anyone that didn't read that, you
can find it on LinkedIn. I discussed my relationship with law as though it were
a toxic romantic relationship, and the way we get caught into dysfunctional
patterns in those relationships, and how liberating it's been to leave it and
to know that the skills that I acquired there are so valuable in another context.
That was my cheeky way of announcing to the world that I've got a new position.
Todd Orston: With that door open, go
ahead and tell us about SupportPay.
Erika
Englund: You are
correct, that it is a tool to help manage child support payment and expenses.
And you are absolutely correct that we help people prevent exactly the mistakes
you have discussed. As a divorce attorney for 15 years, and a divorced parent
myself, and I'm sure you've seen this in your office thousands of times, it's
so typical that people say, "I just wish I never had to talk to my ex
about money again." And SupportPay handles that by managing all of the
discussions, negotiations, and exchanges related to child support through an
app. So not only does it eliminate the conflict with having to discuss these
things back and forth constantly, and if you have children, you know that they
constantly cost money. Mine, at least, haven't earned anything yet. They're
seven and nine, they're not bringing anything in.
Todd Orston: It's laziness.
Erika
Englund: We'll get that
piano out on the street soon. But they're constantly costing money. And so when
we have children in particular, there are so many exchanges between parents to
get reimbursements and expenses and support payments and bonus payments, and so
the app really allows all of that to be consolidated into this neutral space
that takes away the conflict and keeps absolutely perfect records. For tax
reasons or, God forbid, you've got to litigate, you've got all your records
perfectly there at the touch of a button. Really an incredible tool.
Todd Orston: And one the things, did I
see where, let's say you went to a doctor's office and there was a copay and
your child support agreement said that you all are going to split any copays,
can you take a picture with your phone of the receipt and send it to your
spouse, and ask for reimbursement through the app?
Erika
Englund: It's that easy.
Scans the receipt, autopopulates it, you verify that it populated it correctly,
and it shoots a request over to your spouse, who can either hit pay, or they
can dispute it. If they dispute it, it gets set aside from your running total,
so that it doesn't interfere with running child support totals. And you, as
lawyers, know this can create an accounting nightmare when it does. So, yeah.
Scan the receipt, the other parent hits pay or dispute, and they've got that
whole situation done between the two of them in under a minute, on the go.
Todd Orston: Wow. So she doesn't have to
write an e-mail, or he, doesn't even have to write an e-mail. It's just the app
takes care of communicating that information to the other person.
Erika
Englund: Yes. Well, it's
already difficult to keep track of expenses. It's difficult to talk to our
former spouses about money, and our goal is to make this component of the
process as straightforward as possible for people.
Todd Orston: It's so powerful on both
sides. It's powerful because I can't tell you how many times people call. This
week alone, I've had two people call, and they started talking about how, over
a period of years, they really haven't made all the necessary requests for
reimbursement.
Erika
Englund: Yes.
Todd Orston: Just because it was
difficult. So this makes it so easy to capture those expenses, and hopefully
you can get the reimbursement that you're due. And the flip side, of course, is
the other side making sure they know exactly what's due, and then that way they
know exactly what to pay. So, I mean, I love the concept. It's great.
Erika
Englund: And it's
affordable. It's $80 per year per parent. So if you think about one expense
that your clients don't get reimbursed, or a 15 minute phone call with your
attorney, right there the app has already given you back its value. So it's
quite affordable. A word you use so often on the show is proactive. It's one of
the best tools to be proactive about managing your financial disputes and
arrangements post-divorce.
Todd Orston: Before I forget, because I
know I'm going to forget, what's the website real quick?
Erika
Englund: Supportpay.com.
Todd Orston: Oh, that's easy.
Erika
Englund: All kinds of
resources there, not just about our product, but professionals nationwide that
are able to assist with divorce processes. We are also launching SupportPay in
Spanish this month, and SupportPay Kid, a website that will be designed for
parents to sit down together with their children. You get printables, tools,
and guidelines for divorce.
Todd Orston: Wow. Hey, when we come
back, Erika is going to talk about the five child support mistakes that parents
often make, and how to avoid them.
Leh
Meriwether: I just wanted to
let you know that, if you ever wanted to listen to the show live, you can
listen at 1 AM on Monday mornings on WSB. So you can always check us out there,
as well.
Todd Orston: Better than counting sheep,
I guess.
Leh
Meriwether: Right. You can
turn on the show, and...
Todd Orston: We'll help you fall sleep.
Leh
Meriwether: There you go.
Todd Orston: I'll talk very soft.
Leh
Meriwether: Welcome back,
everyone. I'm Leh. With me is Todd. We're your co-hosts for Divorce Team Radio,
a show sponsored by the Divorce and Family Law Firm of Meriwether & Tharp.
If you want to read more about us, you can always check us out online at
atlantadivorceteam.com, and you can get transcripts of this show, as well as
others, at divorceteamradio.com.
Leh
Meriwether: Well, today, we
have a special guest, Erika Anne Englund, who's the chief of strategy for
SupportPay, and she is telling us, number one, about this amazing new software
that she has out there promoting to help anyone who has a child support issue
they're dealing with. And then she's also talking about, from her experience as
an attorney, a mediator, and the chief of strategy for SupportPay, the five
child support mistakes that parents make and how to avoid them.
Leh
Meriwether: And before we get
to the five mistakes, Erika, did I hear you right? So, the parent that's
getting the notification about an expense to pay, they can click pay, does
mean, built into the app, they can actually put credit card information in
there, so you don't even have to mail a check to the other parent?
Erika
Englund: Correct. Yeah,
absolutely. Your financial institution is connected, so that you make the
payment directly through without logging into a separate app. Just hit the pay
button, and the payment is withdrawn on its own. So, not only is this
convenient, but you don't have to give any information about your financial
institution to your former spouse. They don't have to know where you bank or what
your bank account number or your routing number is. Particularly for people
that are high-conflict, or for people that have domestic violence disputes,
it's a really nice privacy component, in addition to being simple and easy.
Leh
Meriwether: Nice.
Todd Orston: I'm going to go so far as
to say, this is an incredible powerful tool, especially in a high-conflict
case.
Leh
Meriwether: Yeah.
Todd Orston: This is the kind of tool
that, if you don't want or need to have contact because it's unhealthy.
Leh Meriwether: Right, obviously, in an ideal
world, you should be able to communicate with the co-parent. But in a
less-than-ideal world where you can't, again, I love the concept because it
allows there to be that healthy distance between you and that parent that
hopefully will avoid strife.
Erika
Englund: Absolutely. We
know that the fewer interactions parents have to have, the lower their conflict
is. We've got research on that. And so not only is it great for high-conflict
parents, but, even for my clients when I mediated that were fairly amicable,
they often, in a marriage, had pretty different ideas about how to handle
money, and they had disputes. If they centered around anything, their disputes
would center around money. So, even for parents that get along fairly well,
still, getting a whole bunch of text messages that you haven't paid your half
of tuition never sends anybody down a really good path.
Todd Orston: Let's hit the other topics.
Leh
Meriwether: So I know that
you've got a lot of experience, between being a lawyer, a mediator, even
training attorneys and financial planners, and now being the chief of strategy,
you've got a nice, short, concise list of the top, or at least five big child
support mistakes that you see parents make that can be avoided. So let's get
into them. So what's the first one?
Erika
Englund: This might
surprise you, but the first is not having a child support order. There's about
15% of parents that don't even have anything written down on paper, and have a
completely informal arrangement for child support. So not only is this a
logistical nightmare when they're trying to track, but both parents, in the
future, can be subject to retroactive or back-looking changes of their child
support, and they don't have any proof that they were on the same page or that
they actually made payments. So even for parents that are really in agreement,
not having a child support order is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.
Or, along the same lines, if you have an order but it hasn't been updated, your
life and your circumstances have changed and now you're paying a different
amount of support, not updating your order creates those same issues, because
what you're doing in life doesn't mirror what happens in your order, and as soon
as there's a conflict, the judge looks to the order first.
Erika
Englund: So one of the
best things parents can do is to look at their order and contact their attorney
to make sure that their order is up to date. It's not terribly expensive to
update an order if you have one, or to get one in place if you don't have one
yet. It's very, very important, looking backwards and going forwards, to make
sure that your records and your actions are in alignment.
Todd Orston: Yeah. Another reason why I
can see that being really important, speaking on the law here in Georgia,
there's something called child abandonment. And if you are not under a child
support order, and you have failed to provide material support for a child for
a period of time, then basically it opens the door to the party bringing what
is a quasi-criminal action, where you are served, have to go to court, put
yourself on child support, and if you don't agree, or if you don't cooperate,
they can actually bring a criminal charge of child abandonment against you. And
using a tool like this, again, even if you're not under a formal order, I can
see immense value, because now you have history of providing support.
Erika
Englund: Absolutely, and
that history is legally admissible evidence, generated by a third party. So
incredibly helpful in cases like that.
Leh
Meriwether: Yeah, because
we've seen, time and time again, where you'll have two parents getting along,
and one of them has a loss in job and they get a new job where there's been a
big pay cut, and the other parent says, "Yeah, go ahead and drop your
child support by 400 bucks a month, I'm good with that." And, at the time,
they really mean it. But two years goes by, and then that same parent gets mad,
and says, "Hey, you owe me back child support for all this time." And
they do.
Leh
Meriwether: Regardless of the
agreement, in Georgia, and I know a lot of states are that way, I don't know
about California, but a lot of states say, "You know what? The order is
the order, and you had to come back to court to change it, and you didn't, so
you owe all this money." So that's a great piece of advice, that you've
got to update your child support order to reflect whatever your agreement is.
Erika
Englund: And, at the
very least, if you can't update it. I listened to your show about COVID and
child support, and your listeners have access to your archive of shows on your
website, which is a fantastic resource for them. On your COVID shows, you
talked about parents making different arrangements during COVID by agreement.
This is exactly the tool you could use to keep track of those different
arrangements. So in the event that there was a future dispute, and you didn't
update your order, at least you could show that the payments were provided and
accepted, and you'd have evidence there backing you.
Todd Orston: I was surprised at that
statistic of 15% of the arrangements are not put into a court order regarding
child support. For the most part, you can't do retroactive child support in
Georgia, but you can do retroactive on expenses. So when you've got a situation
where the child was born out of wedlock, the other parent, when they come after
the obligor for child support, they could be on the hook for past expenses
relating to the child, including birthing expenses. And this app would, if both
parties agreed to this, that would record all of that. So it would be so easy
to defend yourself in court if something like that came, if they brought a
child support action two years later and say, "Well, you didn't contribute
at all", and you go, "Well, wait a minute, I have this app. Every
time you bought diapers you asked me to pay for some, here's my proof I paid
it."
Erika
Englund: You're really
looking at the different between a nightmare scenario and having perfect
records at the touch of a button. There's really no in-between, there.
Absolutely. I know we have about a minute left in this segment, so just to hit
number two. This is really easy, but when a court order lacks details, that is
a big mistake. The court order should say how much support is paid, but also
the day on which it's due, the first support payment, how the support is
allocated between the children, IE, how much we pay for the oldest child, the
second oldest, the youngest, and then how the parents handle additional
expenses. All of these components are crucial to contain in your court order.
So if your court order doesn't have these, it's a great time to go back to your
lawyer and make sure that you've got the required detail.
Todd Orston: So I wonder if California
is different than Georgia. Because in Georgia, the child support order is just,
we can only issue one order for all the kids.
Leh
Meriwether: You don't break
it down into this much for this child, this much for that child. But, again, that's
where the importance of understanding your specific state law comes into play.
Todd Orston: Exactly.
Erika
Englund: Absolutely. And
even if you don't allocate it between children in Georgia, it's still quite
important to have due dates, start dates, allocating expenses and insurance.
We'll get into that a little bit more, but just having an amount may not be a
sufficient court order.
Todd Orston: Absolutely. When we get
back, we're going to continue to break down the five child support mistakes
that parents make.
Leh
Meriwether: Hey, everyone,
you're listening to our podcast, but you have alternatives. You have choices.
You can listen to us live also at 1 AM on Monday mornings on WSB.
Todd Orston: If you're enjoying the
show, we would love it if you could go rate us in iTunes, or wherever you may
be listening to it. Give us a five star rating, and tell us why you like the
show.
Leh
Meriwether: Welcome back,
everyone. I'm Leh. With me is Todd. We're your co-hosts for Divorce Team Radio,
a show sponsored by the Divorce and Family Law Firm of Meriwether & Tharp.
If you want to read more about us, you can always check us out online at
atlantadivorceteam.com, and you can listen to this show, read transcripts from
this show and other shows, at divorceteamradio.com, not to mention anywhere you
get your pods.
Leh
Meriwether: All right. Well,
today we have Erika Anne Englund with us, the chief of strategy for SupportPay,
an amazing software out there, a financial platform that helps manage child
support payments, expenses, and reimbursements. She shared with us about the
software, and now we're talking about the five child support mistakes parents
make and how to avoid them.
Leh
Meriwether: So we left off,
we talked about lacking details in the court order. Erika had highlighted a
difference between Georgia and California. I do want to say something,
following up on what I said, that typically, Georgia, it's just a child support
order for all the kids. But parents routinely, especially if the kids are close
to aging out, like a few years from close to aging out, routinely will do
multiple sets of child support worksheets, so that they do not have to come
back to court to modify the child support as the children age out, they reach
18 or graduate from high school. So I just wanted to throw that in there.
Todd Orston: Okay.
Leh
Meriwether: All right.
Todd Orston: No, I was saying, you can
throw whatever... you know what? As long as your name's on the show, I think
you can throw whatever you want in, so...
Leh
Meriwether: All right. All
right, Erika. Let's hit the next common child support mistake that parents
make.
Erika
Englund: All right. This
is failing to define, and if you could see my hands, I'd be doing air quotes,
additional expenses. In California, maybe it's the same in Georgia, child
support is for base expenses of the child's living, and then the other,
additional expenses of a child's life, like private school tuition, medical
copays, braces, extracurricular and athletic activities, are shared separately
by the parents. Is that how it works in Georgia?
Leh
Meriwether: Similar. Very,
very close.
Todd Orston: Yeah. Things like school,
unless it's specifically stated that private school tuition is an issue, then
if it's not in child support, then the party who is responsible to pay child
support doesn't have an additional obligation. Usually, child support is
specifically dealt with in the order, and then things like braces and all those
other kinds of medical expenses usually fall under some general language that
calls for each party to be responsible for a portion, oftentimes 50/50, but a
lot of times, with child support the way it works here, there's a pro rata
percentage, and therefore, let's say the paying spouse is responsible for 70%,
then their obligation would also be for 70% of those uncovered medical
expenses. So, it is, for the most part, specifically dealt with in Georgia, but
maybe not to the same extent as in California.
Leh
Meriwether: And let me add
one thing, because I think this is a great point, Erika, the failing to define
the additional expenses. When it comes to extracurricular activities, in the
Georgia child support guidelines, seven percent of the child support is
supposed to be considered to going towards extracurricular activities.
Erika
Englund: Oh,
interesting.
Leh
Meriwether: Yeah, so there's
a portion of it. But the court, above, and it's actually built into the
worksheet so it figures it out, but let's say they do travels softball or
baseball, or soccer, or cheerleading, whatever it may be. That gets really
expensive. So it'll automatically deduct that seven percent, or the ratio of
it, and then the parents will be obligated, often on a pro rata share, of the
additional expense.
Leh
Meriwether: But, what we see
in things that create arguments, this is why I think this is so important, so
Mom and Dad, they get divorced, they start doing things, and they have a
disagreement, okay. So for two years, Dad's been splitting the rather
inexpensive soccer expenses. But Dad gets mad at Mom, and then he realizes,
"Oh, there's seven percent of my child support", it's not exactly
seven percent, but anyways, "a portion of my child support counts toward
the soccer, so I'm not paying it anymore." Then Mom gets mad at him, files
a contempt. But if they had spent the time initially to clearly define what
those additional expenses are, it would've avoided the fight later on, which
also would help the children, because it would've kept them out of a fight.
Todd Orston: Well, let me be...
Erika
Englund: Agreed.
Todd Orston: Yeah, let me also just say
one quick thing, just to comment on that, Leh. Absent specific language, Erika,
to your point, I don't believe that father would have that additional
obligation. So that is where we, I can say that we at Meriwether & Thorp,
we are always very careful about, and try to very careful about making sure, if
additional expenses have to be covered, that it's in there. Because if it's not
in there, then the assumption is that seven percent is going to cover all the expenses
that we're talking about. And so if there is travel ball, or cheerleader, or
anything that takes up, or costs a lot, people have to be very careful, because
if you don't put it in, the other party doesn't have an obligation.
Erika
Englund: There are so
many ways it can go wrong when that is not clearly defined, and so this is why
I say, out of all the mistakes people can make with child support, one of the
five biggest is not defining what are the additional expenses, and how are
those allocated between the parents. And even then, we can have problems. With
COVID and distance learning, your children now might need a laptop, they might
need a mobile phone, they may need a tutor or a day care provider or a nanny
during the day so you can work, and these are additional expenses parents may
not even have considered. So it's quite important for parents to be on the same
page about what counts as additional shareable expenses, and then allocating
the percentage of sharing those expenses between the parents.
Erika
Englund: Number four,
this is one of those way easier said than done, but I'll be quick with it. It's
utilizing other tools to keep the conflict down. I look at conflict like a
little teeny fire, and if parents have another conflict somewhere else, it
starts a little teeny fire, and another conflict on something else starts a
little teeny fire, and at some point, you've seen this, it all just explodes
into one giant firewall. So whatever we can do to tamper those fires down as
they come up is really helpful to keep our clients moving forward smoothly.
Erika
Englund: Tools that they
can use to keep their conflict down, obviously SupportPay helps them manage
payment of child support and expenses, so they don't have to talk about money.
That is huge. I also recommend that they use a communication app to handle
their co-parenting and their scheduling. And one of my absolute best
co-parenting tips is read a parenting book. Doesn't matter which book, just
both of you read the same book about how to parent your children. And then when
conflicts come up with the children, you're handling them in the same way. Do
some work on yourself. Do some work on your co-parenting relationship. And even
though that's not related to child support, keeping the conflict down elsewhere
is going to make your relationship over support significantly better. Your
children are going to be happier, and your lives are going to go a lot
smoother. Remember that child support doesn't exist in a vacuum. Divorce is
really hard, and you need and deserve some tools to help manage that conflict.
So do that for yourself, be proactive, to use one of your favorite words, and
it really will help you avoid future child support disputes.
Todd Orston: You know, that is so... I'm
just thinking about the times, you get so busy. Let's say you normally have two
good co-parents, but they're super busy, and we all get a gazillion e-mails a
day, and so Dad, or Mom, whoever it is, I'm going to use Dad right now, Dad
knows he owes Mom some money for a recent orthodontics bill. And so, he's like,
"Man, I can't find that e-mail anywhere." And so maybe it's the 29th
day. Maybe he should've paid it a few days ago, he's just forgotten about it.
Mom texted him, "When are you going to pay me?" Maybe she doesn't say
it like that, but, "When am I going to get this co-pay?"-
Erika
Englund: That's how he
hears it.
Todd Orston: Yeah, that's how he hears
it. And he says, "I can't find it, you need to send it to me again."
She's, "Oh, God, why do I have to keep sending these things to you over
and over again?" So then she has to go to her e-mails, dig up that e-mail,
resend the e-mail, or maybe she scans in the receipt again. Now they're both
irritated with each other. Where SupportPay, which actually makes me, I got a question
real quick. So, let's say he doesn't pay it right away in SupportPay. This is
the question, because I have no idea. Is there a reminder that you can set up,
so maybe like 10 days goes by and he didn't pay it, and it pops up, "Hey,
you still haven't paid this bill." Is that in SupportPay?
Erika
Englund: It will remind
them each time they log in to the app, and then they can set their own
notifications. So they can decide what push notifications they'd like the app
to give them.
Leh
Meriwether: So that way, Dad
doesn't need to bother Mom. Dad just goes into the app. "Oh, there's the
bill. This is how much I owe." Boom, push play. And that avoids that
tension or that frustration, "I got to find this in my e-mail again",
it just avoids all that.
Leh
Meriwether: Hey, when we get
up, we're going to finish going through the five child support mistakes that
parents make, and how to avoid them.
Leh
Meriwether: Hey, I just
wanted to remind you that if you ever wanted to listen to the show live, you
can listen at 1 AM on Monday mornings on WSB, so you can always check us out
there as well.
Todd Orston: Better than counting sheep,
I guess.
Leh
Meriwether: Right. You can
turn on the show, and...
Todd Orston: We'll help you fall asleep.
Leh
Meriwether: There you go.
Todd Orston: I'll talk very soft.
Leh
Meriwether: Welcome back,
everyone. I'm Leh, and with me is Todd. We're your co-hosts for Divorce Team
Radio, a show sponsored by the Divorce and Family Law Firm of Meriwether &
Tharp. If you want to read more about us, you can always check us out online at
atlantadivorceteam.com, and you can get past shows, get transcripts of past
shows, this show, at divorceteamradio.com.
Leh
Meriwether: Today with us is
Erika Englund. She is the chief of strategy for SupportPay, an amazing new
financial platform that manages child support payments, expenses, and
reimbursements. It's fantastic. But we've been talking about the five child
support mistakes that parents make, and how to avoid them. And actually her app
helps to avoid a lot of these, the company's app, but we have one left. So,
Erika, what is the fifth child support mistake you've seen parents make?
Erika
Englund: It's great to
be here. And just to recap, the first is not having an order, or not having an
updated order. The second is lacking details. The third is not defining
additional expenses. And the fourth mistake is utilizing tools to keep the
conflict down between the parents. So, your shows are awesome. I've listened to
so many, but just in case this is the first one somebody's catching, that's one
through four. The fifth is lacking a plan for payment. Very often, parents get
an order for support and expenses, and they walk out of the courtroom, and they
don't know that they're about to face the biggest challenge, which is how are
we actually paying and tracking support.
Leh
Meriwether: Yeah, we have
both...
Todd Orston: I think I can speak for
Leh, that we have both seen people get into immense trouble. And by that, I
mean I've seen people, I actually spoke to somebody recently, that the youngest
was emancipated, and all the sudden, out of the blue, got not just a demand
letter, but a contempt petition alleging that they were $20,000 or more behind
in unpaid expenses. And whether you think it's reasonable or not, you now have
to spend the time, money, and effort to hire an attorney and defend yourself.
Hopefully, the facts are on your side and the law is on your side, but that's
still a lot of effort, and I'll be honest, with a tool like yours, it just
seems like you can make all of that go away, meaning you can avoid those types
of problems.
Erika
Englund: Absolutely.
It's so simple to keep track of these little expenses as they build, day by day
and week by week, and incredibly difficult to go back and reconstruct months or
even years of a financial history. If this is case that you had had happened in
California, our state would have the power to revoke your client's drivers
license and suspend his professional licenses. So if he were an attorney, or if
he were a pilot, we could take away his licenses to actually do his job.
There's incredible [inaudible 00:35:59] incredible reach to collect support.
And so when parents are paying support, they should get credit for the support
that they pay, and the only way that they can get appropriate credit is to show
that they have paid it.
Erika
Englund: So while our
app is really helpful for the parent who's requesting expenses, it's just as
helpful for the parent who needs proof that they have paid expenses as they go along.
And when we have people that don't include in their order how they're going to
pay ongoing support and additional expenses, they're not on the same page and
they don't have a court order for it, then unfortunately the situation you
described comes up much, much too often and becomes an expensive catastrophe
for them, doesn't it?
Todd Orston: Absolutely.
Leh
Meriwether: Yeah. And going
back to the lack of a plan for payment, had that caller called in, they had a
provision in there that said that the person who incurred the expense had to
give notice to the other party within 30 days, and there has to be a clause in
there, what happens when they don't. A failure to give the other party notice
within 30 days results in a waiver of the right to collect that amount. So
you've got to put that detail in there about the payment and the notification
of when the payment is due, like what triggers someone owing a reimbursement
for child expenses, or I've even seen this with extracurriculars, where the
parties agreed to split extracurriculars, but one parent just never gave the
other parent notice. And that other parent-
Erika
Englund: And we have the
opposite issue here in California, where that 30 day period is automatically
mandated, and some parents don't know about it. So they don't know they may
have waived the right to get a reimbursement, because they don't know that the
law requires that they request within 30 days.
Leh
Meriwether: Wow, that's
interesting.
Erika
Englund: At the same
time, there's judicial discretion to bend that, so judges can go back beyond
the 30 days.
Leh
Meriwether: Wow.
Erika
Englund: And in any of
these scenarios, it can just be a mess. And so the simple way, even if a client
doesn't use SupportPay, and I hope they do because it's $80 a year to manage
your conflict, track your expenses, and keep perfect records, but if they
don't, they should at least agree on some system for how they're going to pay.
Is it check, is it bill pay, is it Venmo, and how they're going to track those
additional expenses. Is it Microsoft Excel? Do they meet once a week? Do they
meet every 30 days? And how do they handle disputes as disputes come up? So if
they're not going to use SupportPay, they certainly need, in their order, some
specific language that says how they're going to be making payments, tracking
expenses, and at least in Georgia certainly, language regarding when they need
to provide notice.
Leh
Meriwether: I want to add,
from having to defend these, or handle these kind of cases in the past, $80 for
a whole year is a lot less than me spending just one hour at my hourly rate
trying to figure out these numbers. Because I had a case that was a mess, and
it took, because we had to be able to explain it simply to the judge, I mean
there was like four or five hours spent trying to organize all this stuff.
Todd Orston: Four or five hours? Leh, I
think you're hitting the nail on the head. The vast amount of the work that's
done in these types of case is the forensic work, going through and figuring
out what payments are due, what payments have been made, what payments were
missed. So having a tool like this, and immediately being spoon-fed that
database that lists all the things that were due and all the things that were
paid and therefore all the things that were missed, I'll be honest with you,
that makes it a very simple case, whether we are defending or, for lack of a
better way of saying, prosecuting the case.
Todd Orston: Because if I'm bringing the
contempt, I can show to the other side within minutes, this is what's due. And
if I'm defending, and everything's been paid, I can say, 'Here's the proof. I
don't even understand why you're bringing this action. And by the way, under a
certain code section here in Georgia, if you don't dismiss this case because
it's frivolous, we're coming after you, not just the client, but the attorney,
for fees, because here's the evidence that it's a frivolous case." So, I
got to tell you, it's immense.
Erika
Englund: Oh, agreed. And
it's simpler for the judge, too, because when you do a forensic, and then the
other attorney on the other side does a forensic, I could guarantee you're
going to come up with different numbers to present to the judge, who absolutely
loves going line by line through [inaudible 00:40:52] to compare numbers. I
know this [inaudible 00:40:55][crosstalk 00:40:55].
Todd Orston: Nor is that sarcasm. Yeah.
Erika
Englund: Having a
legally admissible neutral third party source to, just at the push of a button,
download these records for the judge is really helpful for the court, too.
Todd Orston: Well, and, you know the
funny thing is, people who pay through the state have access to something
similar, but not everybody pays through the state. If you can contact child
support services here, and they'll give you, not for the unpaid stuff, not for
the uncovered expenses, but just the general child support, you take that,
which is actually a very helpful tool to show the payment history for the basic
child support, you've taken it to another level where you're saying, "Oh,
we're capturing the child support payments. We're capturing the uncovered
payments, the medical expenses, you name it, and here's now a detailed
record." I think it's fantastic.
Erika
Englund: That's why it's
also a wonderful tool for people that do use the state collection system,
because the state only collects base support. It doesn't collect and track
additional expenses. And so even for our clients using the state system, the
app is really valuable.
Erika
Englund: And this is
really how it got started in the first place. Our founder, Sheri Atwood, is a
single mother. She was a Silicon Valley CEO who had an amicable divorce, and
then, every single time she had to go talk to her ex about money, they had a
conflict. And she thought, "There's got to be an app for this, that allows
us to deal with the financial aspects of co-parenting not face to face."
And when there wasn't, she decided to create that from scratch. So she has
bootstrapped the company. She's been through the nation's most prestigious
incubator, Jason Calacanis's LAUNCH Accelerator, and now she's just closed out
our first round of funding with triple our funding goal, and so gone from
single parent with a problem to CEO with a multimillion dollar company, with a
mission that children get the support that they deserve from both parents, and
courtroom efficiency's increased and conflicts lowered. It's really a fantastic
company to be working for.
Todd Orston: Wow, that's awesome. Hey,
Erika, thanks so much for coming on the show. And the app, or the platform, is
SupportPay. You find it at supportpay.com, is that right?
Erika
Englund: That's right.
It's available in the Google store, too, on Apple and Android. And before you
let me go, I want to let you know I'll give you some resources for your
listeners, in addition to your vast resources you have on your site. I'll give
you some printables for additional expenses and child support order details to
help your listeners out, and then a little write-up on 10 ways that they can
keep conflict down when they're discussing money with their ex. So that'll be
on your website and on our website, supportpay.com, under child support
resources.
Todd Orston: Awesome.
Leh
Meriwether: Hey, everyone.
Thanks so much for listening.