All support orders are required to contain a maintenance enforcement clause, which is usually the last paragraph of your support order. This clause has been amended to make it clearer that debtors, not just creditors, have the option of initiating registration with MEP and that one party must in fact register before enforcement will start. The new clause came into effect on January 31, 2007.

The new clause is:

The amounts owing under this Order shall be paid to the Director of Maintenance Enforcement ("MEP") at 7th Floor North, 10365-97 Street, Edmonton, Alberta T5J 3W7, 780-422-5555 (website: www.albertamep.gov.ab.ca) and shall be enforced by MEP upon the creditor (recipient of support) or debtor (payor of support) registering with MEP. Such enforcement shall continue until the party who registered gives MEP a notice in writing withdrawing the registration pursuant to Section 9 of the Maintenance Enforcement Act.

In some cases people wish to have a third party contact MEP on their behalf. Without authorization, MEP cannot speak to anyone else but you about your file.

If you wish to allow someone else other than your lawyer to contact MEP on your behalf, you will be required to provide us with their name (first and last) and their date of birth. When they contact us on your behalf, they will be required to provide your MEP file number, your date of birth and their date of birth. If, at anytime, you want to remove their access to your file information, you will need to contact us immediately.

All support orders are required to contain a maintenance enforcement clause, which is

On November 14, 2005, MEP began the first stage of deterrent penalties and services fees by introducing the following penalties:

• $25 penalty for each month that a payment is received late or not made at all. To avoid late penalties, debtors should contact MEP to discuss how to bring their account into good standing.
• $50 returned item penalty for payments returned for non-sufficient funds or "stop payment."
• $200 penalty for failure to return Statement of Finances when requested.

In 2008, MEP will begin the second stage of deterrent penalties and service fees by introducing the following:

• $50 service fee for substitutional service on a debtor or creditor by serving MEP.
• $200 re-registration service fee for a client who asks MEP to re-open a file that was closed due to that client's lack of cooperation.
• Interest collection on late payments.

For more information on these penalties, and the fees and penalties that will be introduced in the future, see MEP’s information sheet entitled Deterrent Penalties and Service Fees.

MEP collected $190.7 million in court-ordered support payments in the 2006/07 fiscal year. Since MEP started in February 1986, over $2 billion has been collected on behalf of clients and their children.