A paternity action, a court suit filed to have a man declared the father of a child, can be brought by either the mother or the father. Paternity actions are sometimes called establishment hearings, filiation hearings, or parentage actions.
Continue Reading...You and your child's other parent may agree to modify the child support terms, but even an agreed-upon modification for child support must be approved by a judge to be legally enforceable.
Continue Reading...n most states, the judge can examine a parent's ability to earn as well as what the parent is actually earning. The judge may order higher child support if there is a discrepancy. Actual earnings are an important factor in determining a person's ability to earn, but they are not conclusive where there is evidence that a person could earn more, if he or she chose to do so.
Continue Reading...A court looks at the payer's gross income from all sources, less any mandatory deductions (income taxes, Social Security, health care, and mandatory union dues). The result is the payer's net income.
Continue Reading...In order to qualify as child support, the payments received by an ex-spouse must be designated as child support in the divorce or separation agreement. If the agreement lumps the payments together as "family support" or "alimony," or doesn't otherwise designate a specific portion of each payment as child support, none of the payment will be considered child support for tax purposes.
Continue Reading...A COLA clause in a child support order means that payments are to increase annually at a rate equal to the annual cost of living increase, as determined by an economic indicator (such as the Consumer Price Index). Some judges include COLAs in their orders when setting child support. This eliminates the need for any modification requests based solely on cost of living increases.
QUESTION:
A bankruptcy court just notified me that my ex-husband is filing for Chapter 7. I am one of his creditors, because: a) he owes back child support, including for medical bills, b) he's not paying current child support, and c) when we divorced, he was ordered to pay me $2,700 to equally divide our property. Will he be able to wiggle out of these debts? The court notice said I should speak with a lawyer, but I can't afford one.
Continue Reading...Biological parents and adoptive parents must support a child until:
The question "Who is the father?" is not as simple a question as you might think. There are important legal distinctions between different situatio
Acknowledged Father
An acknowledged father is any biological father of a child born to unmarried parents for whom paternity has been established by either the admission of the father or the agreement of the parents. An acknowledged father must pay child support.ns relating to paternity.
Continue Reading...Enter keywords:
How can we help? All inquiries will not be treated as confidential or privileged, and any email communications may be disclosed to other persons without regard to confidentiality considerations. If you must send us confidential or proprietary information please clearly indicate so and we will make every effort to treat it that way.
