What do we do when we have a party who's not complying with a court order or a judgment? There are several ways that we can address noncompliance in your case, depending on what the topic is. This basic way that we generally address noncompliance with a major part of a judgment would be a motion for contempt. A motion for contempt is where we state, we have a court order that says party's supposed to do X. It can be party's supposed to pay child support, party's supposed to refinance a property, party's supposed to transfer money, party's supposed to follow a custody order.
Anything that is specifically in the judgment that a party is not compliant with or not doing, we can look at filing a motion for contempt. A contempt is a call to action to the court of the party's not complying, and we need relief. It can either be specific orders of compliance, it can be, um, punishment, it can be interest, it can even be incarceration. It depends on what the action is and the non-compliances.
Second way we can do that is a motion to determine amounts due and owing. This is a specific motion that comes up a lot that generally has to do with unreimbursed expenses, are expenses that were allocated that we don't have a specific judgment dollar amount for. So for example, let's say that you're owed an equity payment in your divorce because you sold a house and you're supposed to divide money.
We generally have a specific amount for that, so we would file contempt. If we have an instance where we have an unspecified dollar amount because we're dividing medical expenses or dividing extracurricular expenses, We might file that motion to determine amounts due and owing because we're asking for compliance, but we're also asking for the court to reduce the dollar amount owed to a judgment that we can collect on. If you are filing a motion to determine amounts due and owing or a contempt that deals with expenses, there's a couple things that I want you to do that are going to help me prepare for you. One, Is we need to take a look at the judgment and make sure that we have made timely requests for reimbursement according to whatever the terms of your judgment are.
So if you have a judgment that says, for example, uninsured medical expenses are split 50/50, and you have 90 days to provide proof of the expense, make sure that you're complying with that and you're creating a log of the expenses as you submit them. Second thing I want you to do is make sure that you've clearly communicated to the other party what the expenses are. If you're on a communication app, you can upload that. Make sure you're providing receipts or proof of the expense and keep a log of the expense. It's hard for me to collect money if I don't have proof that it was communicated to the other party and I don't have proof of what the dollar amount is.
Even when you're newly divorced or new— newly have a judgment of custody and support, I recommend that you start keeping an expense log of expenses that you incur that you're seeking reimbursement for, and just checkmark when you receive reimbursement and keep a log of your receipts. That way, if you have a problematic co-parent who's not reimbursing, you have all that ready. If I file that motion and I have "Here's the communication to the other party, here's the receipt of the expense," you're going to have a lot easier time getting reimbursement than if you come in and tell me, "He hasn't paid for counseling for a year." I don't have any way of proving that.
So think about what evidence that you can provide that's gonna help me actually recover those monies, 'cause that's gonna be the best use of your attorney dollars too. If I'm pursuing something I don't have proof at, you're kind of wasting your money. Mm-hmm. The last way that we get compliance is if we're in a situation where someone's not complying with specific court orders, generally having to do with the litigation. Hasn't answered discovery, hasn't provided mandatory documents, is out of time on things, hasn't done the parenting plan, hasn't signed a release that they're supposed to sign, then we would just file what's called a motion to compel. And that's just asking for a court order compelling the person to comply with the court order so that we can get the things we need and move on.
Any of these compliance actions are actions with which we can seek reimbursement of attorney's fees. I can't always predict or guarantee what a court's going to do, but those are cases where specifically we can ask for fees and have a better chance of getting fees if we have non-compliance and we have clear proof of non-compliance. So keep that in mind as well, that you want to be looking at what are the areas of non-compliance, what is the evidence we have that we've communicated it, and we have specific dollar amounts, and we're going to ask for attorney's fees on anything that hasn't been complied with. Thank you.