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NY when child moves out

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leenie1111

Junior Member
Can a custodial parent still recieve child support when the child moves out? MY 19yr old is moving out and her father thinks the court ordered support will go to her now since she will be living on her own. Does the support order stop if the child is no longer living at home? In NY support is paid till the child is 21yrs old, but I don't know what happens when the child leaves. Please help, anyone.
 


leenie1111 said:
Can a custodial parent still recieve child support when the child moves out? MY 19yr old is moving out and her father thinks the court ordered support will go to her now since she will be living on her own. Does the support order stop if the child is no longer living at home? In NY support is paid till the child is 21yrs old, but I don't know what happens when the child leaves. Please help, anyone.
The child support will stop once the child is emancipated. If the father has proof, he needs to go down to the courts.
 

Neal1421

Senior Member
leenie1111 said:
Can a custodial parent still recieve child support when the child moves out? MY 19yr old is moving out and her father thinks the court ordered support will go to her now since she will be living on her own. Does the support order stop if the child is no longer living at home? In NY support is paid till the child is 21yrs old, but I don't know what happens when the child leaves. Please help, anyone.
Is the child in school?
 

NCPhelp

Member
similar situation for us

We have a similar situation. We are also in NY. My stepson is 19 years old and left his mothers home 2 years ago. We continued to pay support and hope that the mom gave some support to my husbands son, we don't know that for sure, but we hope that happened. We went to visit our lawyer in August after our son graduated from high school. We were under the impression that once he graduated and was not continuing on in school and living on his own, that support would stop. Our lawyer told us support in NY is paid until the child is 21 years, which is ridiculous, but I won't go into that. He also told us that we can't emancipate him, he has to emancipate himself. He instructed us to get the payee changed and have the support we are paying go directly to my husband's son. We have opted not to do this, we don't want to drag everyone back into court and incur all these legal fees when in actuality the support will end 19 months from now when he does turn 21. It just doesn't seem worth it, so we are leaving things alone and continuing to pay the mother the support. If she chooses to give it to our son, fine, if she chooses to use it on herself, that is also fine, we have done our obligation, and it gets garnished right out of my husbands check and sent directly to her by social services. Alls I can say is the end is in sight, and I am going to throw the biggest damn party when we make that final payment.
 
NCPhelp said:
We have a similar situation. We are also in NY. My stepson is 19 years old and left his mothers home 2 years ago. We continued to pay support and hope that the mom gave some support to my husbands son, we don't know that for sure, but we hope that happened. We went to visit our lawyer in August after our son graduated from high school. We were under the impression that once he graduated and was not continuing on in school and living on his own, that support would stop. Our lawyer told us support in NY is paid until the child is 21 years, which is ridiculous, but I won't go into that. He also told us that we can't emancipate him, he has to emancipate himself. He instructed us to get the payee changed and have the support we are paying go directly to my husband's son. We have opted not to do this, we don't want to drag everyone back into court and incur all these legal fees when in actuality the support will end 19 months from now when he does turn 21. It just doesn't seem worth it, so we are leaving things alone and continuing to pay the mother the support. If she chooses to give it to our son, fine, if she chooses to use it on herself, that is also fine, we have done our obligation, and it gets garnished right out of my husbands check and sent directly to her by social services. Alls I can say is the end is in sight, and I am going to throw the biggest damn party when we make that final payment.
This doesn't sound right at all. No monies would be going directly to the son. If this was the case do you know how many children would be living on their own? Also unless your husband is in arrears, support wouldn't stop at 21.
 
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NCPhelp

Member
why wouldn't it?

Yes it would. Support stops when the child turns 21 in the state of New York. I think it "could" go beyond the 21st birthday if there were some circumstances, like the child is disabled, or something of that nature. But in the eye of the court at 21, the "child" is considered an adult. Also if there was something in your divorce decree or in the original support order that states it should be longer, like to pay while child is enrolled in college or something of that nature. My husband was not married to the mother of his son, so there was no divorce decree and the support reads til the child is 21 years old. My stepson is graduated from high school, living in his own apartment, working full time, not living with his mother. Not continuing his education. So when he turns 21, yes, it will stop. We have already asked the Support collection unit, and they even said yes, and they don't say yes to anything.

You should check with your lawyer, they are the best source of information.
 

BL

Senior Member
From Ny State Unified Court System Uncontested Divorce packet :
Emancipation :
Under NY Law child support must be paid to the age of 21. If the Child Marries,enters the military OR becomes self supporting , the court may consider the child Emancipated and terminate child support .


Emancipation of a minor age over 16 but under 18 :http://www.empirestatecoalition.org/emanc.html
 

NCPhelp

Member
thank you....

I am not trying to get our son emancipated. I am willing to pay support for him til he is 21 years old. But at 21 years old our financial obligation will be satisfied, according to NY state law and my husbands support order.

Our situation is a little different than the woman who posted here. I don't care what the custodial parent uses the money for. If she chooses to give it to our son, great, but if she doesn't we don't have any say on what she does do with it, child support is for the custodial parent to use as she/he sees fit.

I wish you luck.
 

NCPhelp

Member
To saintkbsmom67

I don't understand your statement in your last post "unless you are in arrears, your payments wouldn't stop at 21" don't you mean the only way it would go past 21 is if we "WERE" in arrears. Which, by the way we are not.
 
NCPhelp said:
Yes it would. Support stops when the child turns 21 in the state of New York. I think it "could" go beyond the 21st birthday if there were some circumstances, like the child is disabled, or something of that nature. But in the eye of the court at 21, the "child" is considered an adult. Also if there was something in your divorce decree or in the original support order that states it should be longer, like to pay while child is enrolled in college or something of that nature. My husband was not married to the mother of his son, so there was no divorce decree and the support reads til the child is 21 years old. My stepson is graduated from high school, living in his own apartment, working full time, not living with his mother. Not continuing his education. So when he turns 21, yes, it will stop. We have already asked the Support collection unit, and they even said yes, and they don't say yes to anything.

You should check with your lawyer, they are the best source of information.
I know the age is 21, but i was saying to you that if your husband was in arrears (and it sounds like he is up to date) he would still be paying after 21.

I too am in NY and this is just the beginning for me.
 

NCPhelp

Member
good luck

I know it is different for us for we are on the other end. But advice for you, try to get your payments garnished, it is so much better then we don't ever have to worry about any child support payment ever being late, and it gets sent to the mom directly from the Support Collection Unit. We are never in arrears and that is a good thing.

This child is not mine so I can't speak directly but this has been a very hard road for all of us. My husband tried so hard to be a good father to his son, but the mother just would not allow it, she came in between them and it hurt them deeply. I hope when he is older and has a family of his own he understands we were not the ones hurting him. I think he has figured that out, but just doesn't want to betray his mother so he just stays away completely, which really hurts sometimes. We weren't even invited to his high school graduation, that hurt my husband so much I can't even tell you.

I wish you all the best in your situation.

NCPhelp
 

MandyD

Member
leenie1111 said:
Can a custodial parent still recieve child support when the child moves out? MY 19yr old is moving out and her father thinks the court ordered support will go to her now since she will be living on her own. Does the support order stop if the child is no longer living at home? In NY support is paid till the child is 21yrs old, but I don't know what happens when the child leaves. Please help, anyone.
Getting back to the OP. Unless the child is emancipated, support will continue. NY is funny about emancipation. It's a rather difficult thing to achieve. Assuming this child won't be or isn't already emancipated, I suggest the NCP go back to court for a modification to send support directly to the 19 year old. Even with a successful modification, any arrears would still be owed to the CP.
 

leenie1111

Junior Member
I'm the CP

MandyD said:
Getting back to the OP. Unless the child is emancipated, support will continue. NY is funny about emancipation. It's a rather difficult thing to achieve. Assuming this child won't be or isn't already emancipated, I suggest the NCP go back to court for a modification to send support directly to the 19 year old. Even with a successful modification, any arrears would still be owed to the CP.
I am the CP and it's my daugther who's moving out of my house, her father(NCP) thinks he can stop paying the child support to me and send it directly to our daughter. He seems to forget the money comes directly out of his paycheck by a court order. I'm guessing he needs to go back to court to get this stopped? Or does he still have to pay the support to me even if she's no longer living under my roof?
 

BL

Senior Member
Read the links and definition of Emancipation I posted .

Yes , He would have to Petition the court for whatever modification/termination he believes change the orders as they are now .

It depends entirely on the circumstances your 19 year old is going to be living .

Obviously , IF the " Child " is going to still be entitled to support , since the " child " is living out of the home , The child could also Petition to have the support go directly to him/her , as it should be .

It's for the Child's support ...... If the child squanders it , so be it . The NCP paid it .
 

ablessin

Member
MandyD said:
Getting back to the OP. Unless the child is emancipated, support will continue. NY is funny about emancipation. It's a rather difficult thing to achieve. Assuming this child won't be or isn't already emancipated, I suggest the NCP go back to court for a modification to send support directly to the 19 year old. Even with a successful modification, any arrears would still be owed to the CP.

It is not hard, I emancipated myself at just under 17 and all it took was filing a couple of papers with my case worker.
My mom signed it saying fine with her.....because as I understood it - that meant if I got into any trouble - my parents would not and could not be held financially responsible. That it would fall on my shoulder.
I didn't get into trouble, so we all were safe. I just made my own living arrangements because I didn;t want to live home. I enrolled myself into the local public high school and just moved on
 

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