Child Support

You and your spouse each have a responsibility to support your children in accordance with their needs and your financial abilities. Child support may be by direct payment or by indirect benefits, such as mortgage payments, insurance, or payment of medical and dental expenses. Ordinarily, the obligation to support your child ends when that child reaches 18, marries, or becomes financially independent.

Some of the issues concerning child support which must be considered include:

• The amount of support;

• The method of payment;

• Ways to assure payments are made;

• When child support may be increased or decreased; and

• Who claims the dependency deduction for tax purposes.

Other questions may need to be answered, depending on the circumstances of your case. Guidelines for the amount of support apply to all cases and are based on the income of the parents and the number of children with adjustments for substantial overnight contact.

Please feel free to contact our law firm to discuss your family law issue. While the circumstances of each case are different and may require different courses of action, regardless of the method chosen, the goal remains the same - to secure the best possible resolution for the client.