My divorce decree states that my ex-husband was to pay child support to my child school. He was not paying the tuition and I could no longer afford to pay it so I took my child out of private school. My ex-husband randomly pays support and nowhere near what the court order stipulated. Can I get the order changed and also get back child support?

fredg

Hi,
Your husband was paying child support to the SCHOOL? not you?
Was he supposed to pay for the tuition also?
I suggest getting a lawer, to answer your questions, and go back to court with you.
Best of luck,
fredg

s_cianci

Is your ex-husband self-employed? If not, then it is highly irregular that his support payments are not directly withheld from his earnings and forwarded to you. You may want to file a motion to have the original support order modified to include this provision. Also it is questionable as to why support payments would be made to a school instead of you ; I presume that this was a boarding school? Of course, as the custodial parent, if you chose to use the support money received to pay tuition for your child at a private school , that's certainly your perrogative. As unusual as such an arrangement is, if your child's school was in fact the obligee of record for a period of time, then you are not entitled to any support money for the period that payments were made to the school instead of you. If you are the primary custodial caregiver of your child and another party is receiving the support payments, then you need to petition the court to change this as well. Keep in mind that in determining a fair amount of child support to be awarded the judge is not likely to consider private school tuition a compelling expense inasmuch as free public schooling is readily available.