Calculating Child Support When Everything Is in Flux

Even the most organized people find the chaos of a pending divorce overwhelming. You are trying to pay the bills for an entire family on one income. You are trying to build a relationship with your new partner’s parents, when, for the time being, your estranged spouse’s parents are still your in-laws. Perhaps you live in a tiny apartment where you barely have enough money to pay the rent, but you are paying temporary alimony to your ex, who lives with her parents, and you are still paying the mortgage on your empty marital McMansion while waiting for it to sell. Divorce cases are a mess, but all divorce actions are temporary; your divorce will eventually become final. Of course, it might take a few months, or even more than a year, to work out exactly how much your ex owes you for his share of the family expenses during the year of chaos while your divorce was pending. If your divorce is final, but your ex-spouse still hasn’t paid the child support obligations from when your divorce was pending, contact a Boca Raton child support lawyer.
Temporary Living Situation, Temporary Unemployment, Temporary Child Support
All child support orders have an endpoint, namely when the children reach adulthood, but in legal terminology, a permanent child support order is one issued when the divorce becomes final, and a temporary child support order is one issued when the divorce action is pending. You can petition the court for a temporary child support order at any time during the pendency of your divorce; you can even include this request as part of your divorce petition. Once the court finalizes your divorce, the court will issue a permanent child support order that abrogates the temporary one. The monthly child support amount in the permanent child support order may be the same as in the temporary one, or it may be different.
Several years ago, a divorced mother petitioned the court to order her ex-husband to pay the child support obligations that had accrued under a temporary child support order. After filing for divorce, the mother had moved with the children to Michigan to Florida. During this time, she lived in her uncle’s house in Florida with her uncle, her fiancé, and her children, and she was out of the workforce. The court imputed minimum wage income to her. Her ex-husband disputed the imputation of income portion of the order. He argued that the former wife could easily earn more than minimum wage, so the court should impute more income to her, therefore reducing the amount of his child support obligations. Imputed income amounts should be based on the parent’s employment history; the court should only impute minimum wage if the parent has never worked, has only ever earned minimum wage, or has been out of the workforce for so long that he or she is, for all practical purposes, starting from scratch.
Contact Schwartz | White About Temporary Child Support
A South Florida family law attorney can help you collect temporary child support, even if it is long overdue. Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.
Source:
scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4866411078892425246&q=divorce+river&hl=en&as_sdt=4,10&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2025