Change of Beneficiary in Child Support Cases
Introduction
When a person is awarded legal custody or guardianship of a child through the court and wishes to obtain child support, that person must file a child support action, even if there currently exists a child support order for the child payable to another party. To ensure that the “one order per child” rule is maintained, the current beneficiary of the child support payments must be terminated and the new beneficiary must be established through a court order. Family Division staff should take the child support complaint from the new CP/guardian, following the approved procedures for establishing child support actions under the FD docket type. Primarily, an FD docket type is used when parties are not married or married and not divorced. The following are the steps to be taken when a change of beneficiary occurs.
Note: For TANF cases, a change of beneficiary is handled administratively by the CWA and the Family Division. For non-TANF cases, a change of beneficiary requires filing a motion with the Family Division in the county of venue.
Change of Beneficiary Procedure
- A new FD case is established, or, if the party has an existing custody case for the same child, that case is reopened to address the support issue.
- The new beneficiary (the person seeking child support) should complete a IV-D application and pay the $6 fee. Family Division staff should establish a new case in NJKiDS for the new beneficiary. In addition, NJKiDS should be searched to ascertain the case information on the current child support. Appropriate screens should be printed and placed in the court jacket.
- The new beneficiary and the obligor should be notified to appear for the change in beneficiary hearing.
- A new order should be entered to terminate the current child support order and address the arrears, if any. Then, a new child support order may be entered, payable to the new beneficiary.
- At the conclusion of the hearing, when a current order is terminated, the approved disposition procedures for FD child support cases should be followed.
Refer to Enforcement for processing the Request for Change of Beneficiary from one TANF case to another TANF case.
For additional information and guidance, please refer to Informational Transmittal 12-09: Interim Procedures for TANF Change of Beneficiaries (supersedes IT 11-10).