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My wife wants to end our marriage and has a 13 year old daughter living with us of whome I have had no relationship and or allowed to have a say in her journey to adulthood. My wife gets child support from the real father, so do I still pay child support after our marriage is over.
Not your child, not your responsibility.
This gets asked a lot on this board and the answer varies from state-to-state.
In California, where I practice, the answer is an easy "no" in your situation. We only impose step-parent liability for support after a finding by a court that the step-parent has taken on and assumed the role as the parent in the child's life and the child has come to see the step-parent as the "real" parent. In fact the rule is so difficult to satisfy that some say commentators say that the step-parent has to do something to interfer with the child finding out who the biological parent really is before liability can be imposed. This is sometimes called "parentage by estoppel", or the "de facto parent doctrine." So, unless you as a step-parent have voluntarily become a de facto parent in the child's life, and the child has come to see you as his or her parent, there's no support obligation in California.
Other states take a different approach. Washington, for example, recognizes step-parent liability (without the parentage by estoppel doctrine) but often the liability is only secondary to that of the biological parent (i.e. there's no double-dipping). Only if the bio-parent cannot or won't pay support is the step-parent liable.
Not knowing what state you are in it is impossible to properly answer your question.
I live in British Columbia, Canada. My wife wants to end our marriage and has a 13 year old daughter living with us of whome I have had no relationship and or allowed to have a say in her journey to adulthood. My wife gets child support from the real father, so do I still pay child support after our marriage is over.
That would be part of the divorce decree but I doubt if it would be required.
In Canada-YES!!
HORROR:Quote:
Originally Posted by nighthawk1963
PAYING REQUIREMENTS
To the surprise of most people, stepparents may be required to pay child support for their stepchildren.
This can be true even if the child's biological father is already paying child support. In fact, it is not uncommon for the custodial payer to receive payments from more than one former spouse.
In stepparent cases, courts are given the discretion to decide how much child support should be paid. One commonly applied “rule of thumb” is to calculate how much the stepparent would be required to pay under the Child Support Guidelines, then deduct from that the amount of child support that the biological parent is paying.
If the biological parent is not paying anything (for instance, the biological parent is unemployed, ill or cannot be located), then the stepparent may be on the hook for the full table amount of child support.
A stepparent, then, may be required to pay any amount ranging from a token top-up amount to the full amount called for by the Child Support Guidelines.
Be a good samaritan or a nice person in Canada...
Here it is what James C Morton
Lawyer, law professor and media commentator wrote:
"The British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled Monday in H.(U.V.) v. H.(M.W.), 2008 BCCA 177 that the parent pays in full first and if there is a shortfall in the amounts necessary to provide the child with an appropriate level of support the step-parent must make up the difference. The decision is lengthy, detailed and nuanced.
At the other end of the spectrum, where the three (or more) parents' Guidelines contributions together are needed to provide the children with a reasonable standard of living, then both the stepparent and the non-custodial parent(s) may well be required to pay full Guidelines amounts. Or, where one of the natural or adoptive parents is not present or is unable to pay any support, the stepparent may well have to pay his or her full table amount. The Legislature has left it to the judgment of trial and chambers judges in the first instance to fashion orders that are appropriate under s. 5.
In this case, the income levels of the father and stepfather were not very different. When the stepfather was supporting the children, the father was sharing custody and was therefore not expected to contribute funds to the mother for the children's care. Now, the natural parents are able to provide a quite comfortable standard of support the father by paying his Guidelines amount and the mother by providing her presumed contribution as custodial parent. The chambers judge reasoned that the mother's expenses were slightly more than her Form 89 had indicated about $2,570 per month from May 1, 2006. In this, he has not been shown to be wrong. Where he erred was in approaching the natural father's obligation as a secondary one, losing sight of the non-discretionary obligation created by s. 3. If the chambers judge had factored in the Guidelines obligations of the natural parents, which come to a total of $2,210 per month, he would have been left with a shortfall of $360 per month. If the stepfather had been ordered to top up this amount, the children would have a more than a fair standard of support and the other requirements and objectives of the Guidelines would have been met."
Ooops
GV-70 beat me to the punch!
Yes, I was just about to say to check with him because he previously posted the material he's posted here about Canadian step-parent liability.
As I recall reading it through earlier (rather quickly so I might have missed something) Canadian law takes a secondary liability approach like I mentioned that is somewhat complex. It seems that the step-parent is more of a surety to guarantee support and there's a kind of apportionment going on as well. My impression is that it is much more complicated that the approach taken by most US jurisdictions--even those that impose step-parent liability (pity the poor BC lawyers that have to sort all of this stuff out).
Any judge who would order you to pay support when she is already receiving parental support would be a fool.There should be an uprising if this were allowed to take place!
I don't think they do. Like I said, in those jurisdictions where they have step-parent liability the step-parent is only secondarily liable: only if the legal parent fails to pay the support or only pays a part of it is the step-parent on the hook for the difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by artlady
As pointed out, the Step parent would only be liable if the bio parent cannot supply the legally mandated support. But if a judge did order a step to pay, it would be because that would be required by law, not because a judge was a fool. He would be a fool NOT to rule according to the law, since doing so would cause the rulling to be reversed on appeal.Quote:
Originally Posted by artlady
Fool but... LEGAL!! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by artlady
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