Who would you recommend for an unmarried cohabitation-type case involving
real estate in Ocean County?
Thank you.
Wendy Ezor Engler
Attorney At Law
2 University Plaza, Suite 300
Hackensack, NJ 07601
tel: 201-488-7001
fax: 201-488-8860
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Original Message------
I am trying to effectuate the refund of the parties' intercepted joint tax refund from the Probation Dept. The parties were divorced early this year. Ex-Husband owed PL arrears which triggered the intercept of their entire 2014 tax refunds. After a disbursement to my client for arrears, the Probation Dept. is holding approx. $6,000. The PSA delineates how the tax refund is to be divided between the parties and we have a PJ Order that orders the remaining refund be turned over to my Attorney Trust Account.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be not as simple as I had hoped. Probation has informed me they cannot release the funds to anybody other than the ex-Husband, pursuant to an unknown Judicial Directive from the AOC. Probation "cannot" comply with my PJ Order and cannot refund the intercepted joint tax refund to my client (ex-Wife and Custodial Parent). Oddly enough, Probation is also unable to locate the Judicial Directive that states their hands are tied.
The Probation caseworker called me and told me to look up the "Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Opportunity Act of 1966". This is the Act that creates TANF benefits and requires the establishment of state CS Collection/Disbursement agencies. I was unable to locate anything about intercepting tax refunds to satisfy child support arrears (although the act does authorize the interception to reimburse the government for paying out too many benefits). I could not find anything about refunding the tax refunds.
I have looked online at the Judicial Directives to the Probation Department on the NJ Judiciary web site, but could not find anything that applied to this situation. Has anybody run into this issue? I assume it's fairly common and I've had tax refunds intercepted to pay arrears in many of my cases in the past, but never had to deal with the refund of same.
I'd appreciate any insight into this.
TL;DR version - how does the Probation Department refund intercepted joint tax monies to the parties after the arrears have been satisfied?
Thanks,
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Gregory Thomlison Esq.
Toms River NJ
(732)736-8100
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