Interest charges on unpaid maintenance means more for children and families
Alberta’s Maintenance Enforcement Program (MEP) will be charging interest on arrears owed to Alberta children and families starting in fall 2005. The goal of charging interest on overdue accounts is to encourage compliance with court orders. The program will not charge interest on arrears if the debtor makes payment arrangements.
Creditors will be charged a service fee of 20 per cent on all interest collected if they choose to have the program collect interest on their behalf. The other 80 per cent of the interest collected will go directly to children and families. The fee will fund the additional resources needed to offer this new service so that resources are not taken away from the program’s core business of collecting maintenance.
Last year, MEP collected $153 million of $192 million in scheduled maintenance payments for Alberta families—an 80 per cent collection rate. There is $290 million in outstanding arrears owed to the program’s Alberta clients (accumulated since the program’s inception in 1986). The program is committed to making every effort to ensure that Alberta’s families receive the money they are legally entitled to.
More information is available at www.justice.gov.ab.ca/mep/
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