Child Support

What is the name of your state? California

I have actually two questions pertaining to child support...

1. My significant other has a son located in Florida that he has a child support judgement on. He is currently paying over $200.00 a month. We just delivered our son 6 months ago. My question is if we ask them to re-evaluate our situation will they lower his payments since he now has another child? (I'm not sure if it matters or not but he is on a fixed income, because he was injured in the military)

2. My second question is, We would like to get married, but he owes arrears on his child support. Is there away to keep the courts from coming after my money if we were to get married?

Thank you,
Kristin

[Grace_Adler]

I don't know about CA but here, if you have a biologicial child living in your home, they can modify the child support amount but that can't be the sole reason to modify it. I can give you a link to go to and check out.

[url]http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/cse/index.html[/url]

You can also go to some search engine and pull up California Child Support.

If you want to get married, the best way to protect yourself is to have all your assets and bank accounts in your name. Do not have anything joint, don't even file taxes joint. From what I understand they can take your income into account when doing a review or modification if your husband is voluntarily underemployed or unemployed.

[LegalBeagle]

Originally posted by Kristin1176
What is the name of your state? California

I have actually two questions pertaining to child support...

1. My significant other has a son located in Florida that he has a child support judgement on. He is currently paying over $200.00 a month. We just delivered our son 6 months ago. My question is if we ask them to re-evaluate our situation will they lower his payments since he now has another child? (I'm not sure if it matters or not but he is on a fixed income, because he was injured in the military)

2. My second question is, We would like to get married, but he owes arrears on his child support. Is there away to keep the courts from coming after my money if we were to get married?

Thank you,
Kristin

So.. he is on fixed income and behind in his CS .. and he has another child and now wants to deprive money to his first child?

From what I understand, the first obligation is always to the child that pre-existed the marriage. It doesn't matter if his ex wins the lottery or if you have more kids than the old woman that lived in the shoe, his obligation remains the same.

To expand on what Grace said about keeping everything separate, that is a great idea. You CAN file a joint income tax return and at the same time file a Form 8379 Injured Spouse Recovery form. This will refund to you "your share" of the joint return when they take the balance of the refund and apply it to child support arrearages.

The bigger question, as Legal Beagle eluded to, is the moral one. Look at your husband and while you are at it take a long look in the mirror. Your husband has an obligation to assist in supporting that child and when you married him you accepted that as a fact of your life together. If you weren't willing to part with a meager $200 a month to support his child you should have found a man with less baggage...and more character.

[LegalBeagle]

Originally posted by Illinois Dad
The bigger question, as Legal Eagle eluded to

That is twice..

A thousand apologies and I have edited accordingly!!!

In response to both of you, the reason I am with someone that has "baggage" as you so nicely put it, is because I fell in Love with him, and I'm sorry that the both of you have never experienced love with someone that is not perfect.

Second, I don't expect him to not support his other child, but when you are expected to pay $245.00 out of $1200 a month to one child when you have another family to take care of I think thats a little much. Especially when the other two dads to her other two kids pay only $100.00 a month.

Third, the reason he is in arrears is because when he first got out of the of the military (where he got hurt), they did not compensate him properly only making $300.00 a month, which he had to pay $245.00 out of and still support himself. So unfortunalty he was not able to make the payments. And if your wondering why he didn't go get a job it is because the militay declaired him 80% disabled, which means you can only work certain jobs that will not agrivate your disablility. Well because his is a physical disability, and the work that he knows is construction and electricity, he can't do that. And yes he looked into being retrained in something that he could do, but the military refused to retrain him in something that he wanted to do.

And if your wondering why his payments jumed from $200 to $245, is because if you look at my first posting it says "he is currently paying over $200.00".

So, next time don't presume you have all the facts...I just gave you what was necessary to answer my question. And never attack someone personally, when they just need some answers. I'm sorry if the both of you are perfect fathers and you think the father of my little boy is a low life peice of crap, but he's not, because I see him with his little boy, and he couldn't be more loving, and if the woman in Florida that has his other child would stop being such a b----, then she would have a great daddy for at least one of her children.

Thanks for your response, but next time don't bother.

Just to let you know...that injured spouse thing is a crock of ****. I got married last year, and my ex owed from previous years. Even though my income is 80% of our household's, they took our entire refund and paid it towards his debt. Dealing with the IRS isn't easy. They take what they want.

Originally posted by 4gals1guy
Just to let you know...that injured spouse thing is a crock of ****. I got married last year, and my ex owed from previous years. Even though my income is 80% of our household's, they took our entire refund and paid it towards his debt. Dealing with the IRS isn't easy. They take what they want.

Just out of curiousity do they withhold money from your paycheck also? I would like to get married to my babies father, and the only reason we haven't is because we're afraid that they start deducting money from my check.

I know what you mean about the IRS not being easy to deal with. Neither are the court systems. We had a joint account for awhile and they seized the account and took all they money. Well the majority of the money in the account was mine, and I has to go to court to get it back. I think thats rediculous. I showed them my paycheck stub that was direct deposited into that account and they never did refund my money.

Thank you for your input.

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Tattooed across her forehead - -

"FUTURE CLIENT"

IAAL

Kristin - No, with the tax refund and some extra we paid, it's all paid off now. They never did come after my pay check -- just the refund. I did file an injured spouse form, but never heard anything from them about it. He owed the money, and one way or another, we were going to have to pay it, so I just let it go. However, I don't know what the purpose of the form is!

IAAL - What is your point?

[Grace_Adler]

Originally posted by I AM ALWAYS LIABLE
My response:

Tattooed across her forehead - -

"FUTURE CLIENT"

IAAL

LMAO!

Ok, about the money and having other children. What I was trying to say was, in NC, your obligation to the first child(ren) remains the same. However, lets say that someone went for a modification. When they do the review, they will take into account how many biological children are living in the home of the NCP which will affect the amount of child support or not at all depending on the gross combined incomed of the parties involved. However, the NCP by law, can't ask for a modification on the sole basis of having more children. They can ask for one based on reduction of income and having more biological children in the home. I have no clue about CA though. I'm sure IAAL can tell you if the law is similar there or not. Hope that made sense.

As for the injured spouse form, sometimes it works, unless you're dealing with CSE. They do not want to admit fault or give up that money. Trust me, I know. Trying to get money from them that doesn't belong to them or that was overpaid is like pulling teeth.

"you are expected to pay $245.00 out of $1200 a month to one child when you have another family to take care of I think thats a little much."

Who came first...the child or the "other family"? No one told him to have another family and if he couldn't afford to support the one he has (yes, that child is his family too) he shouldn't have had it.

There are a lot of things in life that I would like to have, but I cannot afford them so I don't have them. It works the same way with kids. The fact of the matter is that this other child is and always will be his first obligation. All the other statements about the children that his ex has with other men are extraneous arguments. As for the comments about his "baggage", I was simply stating that these also will be fhe facts of YOUR life until this child is 18. You can choose to live with that or not.

Good luck.

Ok fellas - opinions please
RE: Child support and second families taking the back seat -
How many problems going before the courts could be avoided if this kind of info was made well known BEFORE marriage? Say, issuing a big red label when you get your marriage license(ie. "Warning - you are about to marry a man with children from a previous marriage - KNOW YOUR RIGHTS) And of course,under that , they could put "YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS"
Think that would free up the courts a tad?



_______________________ (Line for IAAL to tell me what is tattooed on my forehead!)

[Grace_Adler]

Yeah, and underneath that, they need to list all potential problems. Maybe IAAL could come up with a Top 10 List for that too. *LOL* Hmm, on second thought, it would probably be alot longer than 10. Come to think of it, they need to put warnings on all marriage certificates for everything.

I can't watch the Top 10 on Letterman without thinking of IAAL now. Thanks alot you butt!