I was served with child support papers today, but the mother of my son and I have decided upon joint custody. We are not married. I have him one week, and she has him the other week and so on. I already pay for all of his needs (diapers, clothes, etc.) as well as even many of her living expenses.

The only reason she filed for child support is because she gets food stamps and medicaid for herself and my son; they told her she would lose all of her benefits if she didn't come after me.

Also, since then, we both moved to a completely different county, which is about 5 hours away from where this suit was filed. Neither of us want to go that far for something that we already decided to do ourselves.

There are a few questions I need answered:

#1. Since neither of us live in our old county, can we get this transferred to our current city?
#2. How do we go about getting this joint custody situation taken care of before the court date? Is this something that can be taken care of with a few phone calls, and a visit to a lawyer? Or is this a drawn out court process?
#3. Will I be ordered to pay any child support still with us having joint custody? (She is unemployed and I am technically unemployed as well).
#4. Will she lose any of her food stamp or medicaid benefits due to us having joint custody?

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks.

You and her can and should move it to the court where you both live.

You and her can get an attorney together and set up all the paperwork to file in court, ( you have to submit it to court for the court but you will still have to appear in court.)

Child support will be based on income and how much time each parent has. If for example, you both have them equal time but one parent makes a lot more than the other, they may still have to pay support. *** laws vary by state