Ask Me Help Desk - Child support confusion!

Child support confusion!

So I am getting married to a wonderful man. He has a child with another woman. We both of course love this child and see him. We don't have anything in court about paying child support. We are planning on doing so very soon. I do not work because I stay at home with our 14 month old little girl. So he makes the income. Roughly he makes maybe 3000.00 a month. Does anyone know how much I'm looking to be paying for child support? Does the courts take it into consideration that she is remarried? Do they take it in consideration that we have a child also to take care of? :confused:

Since he isn't paying child support at this time and if he is held liable for arrears then they could take up to 65% of his gross. He needs to take care of this right away.
He should have been paying all along. And you might be getting a look into your future.

Ok he has check stubs for paying her monthly. Its just not court ordered.?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhiannahunt

Ok he has check stubs for paying her monthly. Its just not court ordered. ??

Who set this amount for support ? Was the amount set as a agreement between them or is this money he gave her he figured he could afford. Also how old is the child ?

How did they get a divorce, and set up child custody with no child support order?

So my guess 400 a month or so at least.

No he beig married has no bearing

Well they never got married. And she was the one who set the amount.

And he's 4

You asked a lot of questions all in one, and they are good questions.

Every state has a child support guideline- not the same guideline but a guideline that is used throughout that particular state (i.e. a uniform guideline) -and the reason for this is that the feds mandated that all states adopt a guideline of some sort quite a few years ago (early 90's I believe as a part of welfare reform). Some states (like Nevada) have a bone-headed guideline that is a simple percentage of a low-time parent's income and nothing more. Others use a percentage plus additional factors. California's guideline is the most sophisticated of them all and we have to use a computer program to calculate support. Our guideline takes just about everything into account: the gross incomes of both parents, tax filing status, the timeshare percentage, other tax issues and on and on.

You asked: Does the courts take it into consideration that she is remarried? Do they take it in consideration that we have a child also to take care of?

Yes to all of these. If the child's mom is remarried and files a joint return with her husband her tax liability for one-half of her husband's income is taken into account (if the new husband earns more than she does this will INCREASE the support she gets from the child's father; if he earns significantly less than she does it will decrease her support). The baby you have together can qualify your to-be-husband for a hardship deduction which will reduce his support liability. But this is California law. Check with a local family law attorney if you are not in California to see if this is true in your jurisdiction.

Ok So he makes the same amount that my fiancé does. And she currently is not working. But is very capable of working. We moved to a different state, and we visit him about every three months. She wants to do a parenting plan. We agree and we are paying to get it filed. But right now she is telling us he can't see us here until he's seven. To me it doesn't make sense to do the parenting plan if she is not going to let us see him until he's seven. I thought we should just go to the court and get this child support handled. Its 250.00 dollars to file the parenting plan.

And about 3 months ago a incident happened involving the son being abused by her husband. We took him to a hospital and they ruled it abuse. My husband doesn't think he has as much rights as her. We want custody. It is still under investigation with CPS and they aren't helping us at all. All the husband got was parenting classes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhiannahunt

Ok So he makes the same amount that my fiance does. And she currently is not working. But is very capable of working. We moved to a different state, and we visit him about every three months. She wants to do a parenting plan. We agree and we are paying to get it filed. But right now she is telling us he can't see us here until hes seven. To me it doesnt make sense to do the parenting plan if she is not going to let us see him til hes seven. I thought we should just go to the court and get this child support handled. Its 250.00 dollars to file the parenting plan.

And about 3 months ago a incident happened involving the son being abused by her husband. We took him to a hospital and they ruled it abuse. My husband doesnt think he has as much rights as her. We want custody. It is still under investigation with CPS and they aren't helping us at all. All the husband got was parenting classes.

I get the impression that the child is not in California because of your use of the term "parenting plan" (sounds like Washington state terminology to me), an expression that we rarely see anyone use here (I frankly prefer the term to our fairly out-dated "custody/visitation" terminology).

First, I cannot see any advantage to going to court to get a child support order. Check your local child support guideline, see what support would be, and then just pay it without an order. In California, there is no such thing as retroactive child support extending back before the date a case is filed in which child support is an issue so check to see if this is the rule in your jurisdiction as well (for example, if a child is 17 when a parent first files a case asking for child support and you appear in court 1 month after the case is filed, you only get 1 month's back child support, NOT 17 years of support, which is what many people believe for some odd reason- this is true even if the support obligor paid nothing for 17 years).

Second, if the dad is being denied access to the child, he needs to file a motion for custody/visitation and see what happens in court. If the child was abused 3 months ago I would think the dad should have custody awarded to him and the mom supervised visitation until the details of the abuse are sorted out in court.

From what I know. The step father already went to court. The judge only gave him parenting classes and probation. We have the pictures of the abuse. The nose got almost broken, and handprints everywhere on his body. Bruises. Before the court hearing the step father had a no contact order with the son, but CPS found they went behind the order and was in contact. Nothing was done about that either. So basically we should get a lawyer? We are scared he will get hurt again.

She, the mother is also saying we owe her back child support. She dropped the child support, basically because we had ben 50 percent of the time and saved her 500.00 a month of daycare.?

Ps. You have answered so many of my questions! Thank you!!

This child needs to be out of that home he is in and with his father immediately. I'd file an emergency (ex parte) order seeking custody with no visitation to mom. And I'd get it too. If it were a client of mine I'd recommend doing it tomorrow, not waiting even one day. Attach copies of any documents you have to your motion but don't delay.

I'd ignore the support request. Like I said, in California there's no support owed before any date a case is filed in which support is an issue.

When you say attach any documents. Does that mean pictures and all? And another question we want a lawyer and do we have to get a lawyer that lives where she lives, or can we get one down here?

You should offer documents to the court that show the child has been abused. That could include photos, yes.

I'd hire a lawyer in the county in which you plan on filing the case which is probably where the child lives. I assume you live in the same state, correct?

No he lives in Washington and we live in Nevada. Thank you so much for your help

Has the child lived in WA the last six months? If so, you probably need to file in WA. If the child and the mom moved to WA from NV within the last 6 months and NV had been the child'a home state before that (I can explain what "home state" means if relevant) then you can file in NV.

Okay. Well yes he has always lived there in Washington. Do you know if lawyers take payments? We just got settled and have a good job. We don't have a big sum of money to do this. Do they take credit cards? Im so sorry I am asking you so many questions!

Also My fiance's mother wants to know if she can do anything about this. She has all the paper work. She also writes all the times that the mother drops him off. So my question is... Is there anything a grandmother can do?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhiannahunt

okay. Well yes he has always lived there in washington. Do you know if lawyers take payments? We just got settled and have a good job. We dont have a big sum of money to do this. Do they take credit cards? Im so sorry i am asking you so many questions!

Washington has exclusive child custody jurisdiction so you have to file there. Do lawyers take payments? Some of them do. It's simply a matter between would-be client and attorney. And all of them I know of gladly take credit cards.

I'm an attorney in California and a Certified Family Law Specialist (incidentally, I am also licensed to practice in Washington state but I don't maintain an office there nor do have any cases in Washington so you need to ask local counsel about their procedure, local rules and so on).

Based upon what you've said I think you have a very good chance of obtaining custody of this child (I've seen people lose custody of their kids to a co-parent on weaker facts than yours).

Wow. Thank you so very much. I Learned so much. I feel so much better now. So should we get the child support handled first or just start fighting for custody!