Withdrawing From FMEP in British Columbia: Enforcement and Arrears

If your support order is enforced through the Family Maintenance Enforcement Program (FMEP), you may wonder whether you can step away from it. Recipients sometimes want to stop enforcement because they have reached an informal arrangement. Payors sometimes hope that ending enforcement will end the debt.

The short version is that enforcement and the support order itself are two different things. This article explains how the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act treats arrears, what enforcement tools exist, and how support is actually changed. Whether and how a particular file can be withdrawn is worth confirming directly with the enforcement program and a lawyer.

This article covers the law of British Columbia.

Enforcement is not the same as the order

Every parent and guardian has a duty to provide support for the child. Support obligations under an order continue until the order is changed, suspended or terminated by a court under section 152, and a payor cannot end them by their own decision.

An enforcement proceeding under the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act is not itself a way to change support. So even if enforcement stopped, the order would still exist unless a court changed it. Any informal side arrangement does not by itself change what the order says, so talk to a lawyer before relying on one.

What happens to arrears

Arrears owed under a maintenance order bear simple interest at the rate set by regulation, and the court cannot reduce or cancel arrears except as the Act allows. On a variation, the court may vary an order without reducing or cancelling the aggregate of the arrears.

There is an important exception. The court may reduce or cancel arrears when they are reduced or cancelled in a proceeding to change the order. A payor who applies promptly to change support may therefore get a retroactive reduction, while one who waits risks arrears and interest continuing to accumulate.

What enforcement can involve

A court must make an attachment order unless it would be unfair to the debtor. An employer may not dismiss, discipline or otherwise penalize an employee because of a notice of attachment. Whether a particular federal payment, such as a tax refund, can be garnished depends on what is designated by regulation, so confirm it for your situation.

If you are the payor

If your circumstances have changed, the way to address it is a court application to change the order. A child support order can be changed, prospectively or retroactively, if a change in circumstances as provided for in the child support guidelines has occurred since the order was made. Spousal support can be changed if there has been a change in the condition, means, needs or other circumstances of either spouse.

Delay can be costly because of interest on arrears. If you disagree with a Provincial Court order made in an enforcement proceeding, appeals go to the Supreme Court.

If you are the recipient, and next steps

If you want to stop enforcement because the situation has changed, ask the enforcement program directly what it needs from you and how any change would affect arrears. Remember that agreeing to something informally may not change the order, and a court can change support only on the proper grounds.

• Get your current order and an up-to-date statement of arrears.
• Contact the enforcement program to ask whether and how your file can be closed.
• If circumstances changed, gather income and expense records for a court application.
• Do not stop paying or accepting payment based only on a verbal arrangement.
• Speak with a lawyer about changing the order and what that would mean for arrears.

Frequently asked questions