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How to Get Out of Paying Child Support Without Breaking Any Rules

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The days leading up to Valentine’s day are prime time for cynical Google search queries, like “love stinks,” “women are gold diggers,” and “men are scum.”  When you are a parent, though, you can’t afford just to channel your self-pity into Google searches.  Even your most misanthropic search engine adventures are at least slightly solution-focused.  Therefore, you might be thinking “child support is a rip off,” but what you actually search for is “legal ways to avoid paying child support.”  Your search is likely to turn up plenty of results, because there are legal ways to get out of paying child support, but they are not for everyone.  Even if you can’t legally get out of all your child support obligations (you probably can’t), a South Florida child support lawyer can help you reduce your child support obligations to something more reasonable.

Strategy 1: Stop Being a Parent of a Minor Child

Your child support obligations stop when your children reach legal adulthood, usually when they turn 18.  For the child support obligations to end before then, the parent-child relationship also has to end.  One example of this is when a teenager chooses to become legally emancipated before turning 18.  Likewise, a parent who terminates his or her parent rights cannot be required to pay child support.  A common example of this is when the biological parents voluntarily terminate their parental rights so that the child’s adoptive parents can legally adopt the child.  If a parent has proven himself or herself truly unworthy of the parent-child relationship, such as by being convicted of sexually abusing a child, the court might terminate the parent’s parental rights.

Strategy 2: Have a Rich Ex

In rare cases, the parent who spends more time with the children really has no need for financial support from the other parent.  You and your ex can sign a written agreement, at the time of the divorce or anytime after, that your ex no longer needs your financial support.  In this case, you are still entitled to parenting time and must file a parenting plan if you have not already done so.  If your ex is being financially supported by a new spouse or live-in partner, this by itself does not reduce your child support obligations, although it may affect alimony.

Child Support Rules for the Rest of Us

In Florida, most families follow the standard child support guidelines in determining the amount of child support.  In fact, if the judge orders an amount substantially higher or lower than the one recommended by the guidelines, the judge must file a written statement explaining how they arrived at the decision.  The guidelines calculate the amount of support based on each parent’s income and expenses, so if your financial situation has changed, you can modify your child support agreement, but you must go through the court to do it.

Contact an Attorney Today for Help

A lawyer cannot make your child support obligations disappear into thin air, but they can help you pay child support on terms that are fair to you.  Contact the Boca Raton child support lawyers at Schwartz | White about your child support case.

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