A few years ago, I was in a pretty serious car accident. During the aftermath, I became really familiar with a lot of different types of lawyers. I worked with personal injury lawyers, insurance lawyers, and many others. Perhaps the most important, though, was the estate planning lawyer. I was really young, and neither my wife or I had thought about starting a will. But the accident kind of scared us into it. What would happen if one of us were to die? Even when still in the hospital, I was working with the lawyer to draw up a will. Now, I have some peace and security about what the future will be like if something should happen to me. And I have a lot of experience working with various types of lawyers! The accident was kind of a blessing in disguise in that way.
Going through a nasty divorce is one thing, but trying to figure out how much you are going to pay in child support is another matter entirely. Every case has a certain formula that is used to determine what you are responsible for paying the custodial party. When determining child support, the court will look at how much time each one of the parents is with the child and what each parent makes. Other factors can also determine how much money the other party should pay, such as the amount of child care paid, mortgage payment and filing status for income taxes.
Can child support be negotiated?
While there is a certain guideline that the court follows when determining how much you are going to have to pay for child support, there is a little leeway in terms of the amount. Your attorney can go to work negotiating the amount of support you are going to pay based on various factors that you can put into play, such as other expenses you might be responsible to pay or fluctuations in income.
If you have a good attorney working for you, they will be able to discuss whether there are any underlying issues in your case that are going to make the amount of support you are responsible for paying change, as well as what you need to do to deal with those potential issues.
Are there other issues that you need to be aware of?
When dealing with a child support case, there are often other issues that tend to pop up concerning income. Oftentimes, it can be difficult to determine whether you will get overtime or receive a bonus from work. The court will generally order you to pay a certain amount regularly and then stipulate that you will have to pay a certain percentage of any overtime or bonus pay you get. In fact, this is more common than you might think.
It is important that you know what you are responsible to pay and when. You don't want the court coming after you because you didn't pay what you were supposed to or you simply didn't pay enough. The best thing you can do is go over everything with your attorney, one like Robert J. Schmit., to make sure you have a thorough understanding of what's going on and what you need to do. This will save you a lot of time and hassle down the road.
Share14 January 2015
