Father Owes Back-paid Child Support… What Happens If He Passes?

Location: Illinois (and Wisconsin)
(Context: mother and children live in Illinois, father lives and works in Wisconsin)

My dad owes more money than he’ll ever be able to pay back in his lifetime for child support. My sibling and I are now adults and have been for a good while. When we were younger, dad did not pay much in child support due to being out of work while struggling with addiction and being in and out of treatment/rehab centers and jail. While I understand the intention of back-owed child support to repay the other parent for the costs they had to cover for the kids… my mom never paid those costs to begin with. When my parents split, my mom went on every single state benefit imaginable and had boyfriends who would move in and handle the costs for her and us as her kids. My parents split when I (oldest) was 9.

My dad is now clean and works full time. He has had a lean put against his mortgage for back-owed support, and I believe his wages are garnished as well. He is very aware of how my mom has operated since their divorce, but when I ask about talking to his lawyer to maybe see if we can get some of the costs taken off his plate, he says he just pays it and goes on about his day because he just wants to live in whatever peace he can manage instead of dealing with my mom and courts anymore.

However… it’s never enough when it comes to my mom. She is still getting full benefits from the state, and getting back owed child support from my dad ALL while also living with her long term boyfriend who works full time, and the majority of his money goes to her bills, her (brand new) car payment, and her for literally whatever she wants. Her kids are fully grown, moved out, married with their own kids. She now has her eyes set on not only her boyfriend’s assets (having conversations of marrying him so that she will be entitled to his benefits and SS when he passes) but also on what little my dad has, which is really only his small little property that she now says she wants for vacations and that she would “graciously leave it for us when she passes”.

She has canceled her life insurance, had my dads cancelled over a decade ago when she stopped paying it (fair but still) and neither of them have hardly any assets that my sibling and I would inherit when either of them pass. My sibling and I are not interested in inheriting wealth or large sums of money when they pass, but we know what death costs. And also, we know our mom’s greed and constant want for luxury and materialism that sits way outside her income or abilities, even with her boyfriend’s income.

My dad’s health worries me every day. He has beat his body to crap and refuses to slow down. He’s the kind of guy that will most likely die working. My sibling and I have already had conversations about how we want to handle the situation in the event that he passes, which includes potentially delaying notifying our mom due to her inability to not make everything about her. We want to be able to grieve our dad in peace when the day comes. What can we do to ensure that we inherit and control my father’s estate, or what little there will be of it anyway? Is there anything we can do to keep our mother from taking everything that’s left when he passes for back-owed support?

There is so much more context with this, but this post is already long. I promise this isn’t a situation of being one-sided with our parents or having animosity. Just looking for legal options and what the law may already set in motion when he passes so that we are prepared.