Child Support: Legal Obligations and Options.
Hello, I’m Oklahoma Moms’ Attorney Palmer Johnson. I specialize in family law matters with a particular focus on helping mothers navigate the legal proceedings that affect their families. In today’s video, I’m going to talk to you a little bit about child support.
In any family law action, whether it’s a divorce, a paternity case, a child support order is going to be established and it’s a set formula. You disclose your income and insurance information with the other party and then you take the income and you put it in the calculation along with things like the cost of the insurance and who’s paying for that. It’s going to spit out a number and that is what the state of Oklahoma says is the baseline support for the parent who’s going to be paying child support.
Key Elements
In some cases, parties can deviate from that where the court finds that it’s in the best interest of the child or by agreement of the parties for specific reasons. If both parties have significant income, it could potentially not just not be a very important issue. If one party is, makes concessions in another area or agrees in the property distribution to do something that’s favorable to the other party, they might agree to a smaller monthly number.
Once the child support order is entered in place, that is the order and it’s going to remain in place until it’s modified or if there’s multiple children, one of the children ages out but again, you’re still going to need to get a new order. If you’re the party that’s ordered to pay child support, I always advise that you continue to pay what is on the order until such time as there’s a new order that’s modified.
Consultation with Oklahoma Moms’ Attorney Palmer Johnson
This avoids the potential for arrearages or back child support which effectively creates a lien on your property and can become problematic if it gets out of hand. If you’re the party that’s receiving child support and the other party stops paying it, there are mechanisms to collect that child support and we can help discuss that and make sure that you’re receiving the financial obligations that the other party is legally required to pay you to support your children. So if you are ready to take the next step or you need more information about child support and how that affects your family, contact me at moms.law and I look forward to meeting you.