At the time of separation or divorce, the court may issue a support order. This directs someone to pay child and/or spousal support. The person who pays support is called the payor.

The court will also issue a support deduction order. This is the authority to request the payor's employer to deduct the support payments from that person's pay cheque.

The court automatically sends these orders to the Family Responsibility Office.

When we receive these court documents, we register the case. We do this by:

• assigning the case a number
• contacting both the support payor and the support recipient to:
• provide them with the case number and a confidential Personal Identification Number (PIN), and
• explain how the program works and what their responsibilities are.

Once the case is registered, we start the process of:

• collecting support payments from the payor, and
• sending the payments to the support recipient.

If we do not have the address or employment information for the payor, we will search for contact information using the tools available to us.

What happens if the parties do not want us to enforce their support orders

Sometimes the payor and the support recipient arrange for support payments to take place privately between them and not involve us.

Learn More About Ontario's family courts What happens after you register a support order or a domestic contract What happens when someone does not pay support About your Personal Identification Number (PIN) How to withdraw from the program