Category: Child Support

Divorce involves many financial adjustments. One of the biggest is child support. In Pennsylvania, both parents have a responsibility to bear the costs of rearing a child. This legal mechanism makes sure the needs of dependents are continually met. Many factors help divorce courts determine how much the noncustodial parent...

Navigating life after divorce can be complicated, especially when your kids are involved. Thinking about and trying to calculate child support payments is just one factor that can contribute to these complications. Figuring out child support can be challenging and unpredictable and the rules used to calculate and enforce these...

You have probably heard the saying that life sometimes does not go as planned. Well as many young adults have found, sometimes life comes without a plan-especially when sex is involved. The costs associated with child support can be astronomical. Research shows that there are more than 1.6 million children...

One of the realities for clients that are involved in child support or spousal support is that the parties’ income fluctuates during the course of the order. A support is always modifiable and either party can petition the court to have the order modified at any time. So, for example,...

I have written previously about the expiration of a child support order and have discussed that the order doesn’t necessarily expire when the child turns 18 years of age. The recent case involving a New Jersey teenager suing her parents for support (among other things) casts a new light on...

In family law, the issues of paternity and child support are some of the most common and tend to go hand in hand. Often, a putative father will ask for a paternity test when the child’s mother files for support. If the Court determines that it is appropriate to conduct...

Sometimes in child support cases, the payor ends up paying too much support over a period of time due to a clerical mistake or perhaps a garnishment of a Federal Income Tax return. As a result, there will be a surplus of support. However, the child support office will continue...

Our office recently received a telephone call from an individual regarding a stepparent’s obligation to pay child support. The prospective client was asking how her new husband’s income would change her support order. The child’s natural father had filed for a support modification because the mother had gotten remarried and...

In my last blog entry, I provided an overview of the types of factors the court will consider when deciding on whether or not to deviate from a guideline child support order. In this and the next entry, I am going to further break down the reasons you may qualify...

I have previously written blog entries about how Pennsylvania courts calculate child support. The basic child support calculation is relatively straight forward and largely dependent on the parent’s relative incomes. However, after the court calculates a basic child support award, it is permitted to deviate from that amount (either increase...

Pennsylvania law provides a guideline spreadsheet that establishes a base amount of money that parents must contribute toward child support. It begins by taking the parties’ combined net income and then delineates a basic amount that the parties shall pay for one to six children. The guidelines address situations where...

Once a support order is entered by a Pennsylvania Court, the order is always modifiable. The Court recognizes that people change jobs, get raises, are laid off and experience fluctuation in income throughout their lives. Therefore, if you are paying child or spousal support and you begin making more money,...

The payment and collection of child support can be a contentious issue between parents following separation or divorce. The issue can be a sensitive one even when the obligor is making regular payments. However, if the party with the support obligation fails or refuses to make payments, the tension between...

I recently had a prospective client contact my office looking to file for child support. In this case, mother was the primary caregiver and was not employed. The child’s father, however, was collecting Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. Mother wanted to know if she could file for support and collect...

I have recently received a number of calls from prospective clients asking whether if having a new family has any effect on a child support obligation. The answer is, maybe. The entire question turns on the amounts of money earned by all relevant parties: the parents of the first family,...

I have recently fielded some questions regarding the termination of child support orders. Specifically, prospective clients have contacted me wondering why, after their child has turned 18, the support order wasn’t automatically terminated. After all, once the child turns 18 and is no longer a minor, shouldn’t the support obligation...

Parents with partial custody often approach me with questions about how to handle providing money to the other parent when there is a child support obligation. Often, not only does the obligor owe money via the court order, he or she gets pressure from the parent with primary custody to...

As a family law attorney, some of the most common questions I deal with address child support. Specifically, noncustodial parents often ask, “Why do I owe so much money in support?” The short answer, of course, is because the Court has determined that the child or children are entitled to...

So you just found out that you have a child you did not know anything about! She’s 5 years old, you have never seen her, but the lady you slept with 5 years and 9 months ago says “she’s yours”. She goes on to tell you that she’s married, has...

As a Pittsburgh divorce attorney, I occasionally encounter situations where divorced parents each have primary custody of one or more of their children. For example, maybe Dad has primary custody of his teenage son while Mom has primary custody of the three younger children. Although there isn’t anything particularly remarkable...

The hardest question for a Pennsylvania Divorce Lawyer is determining whether or not a divorce case should be settled or go to trial. In a recent article in the Huffington Post.com, entitled,” WHAT DO DIVORCE LAWYERS DO IN THEIR OWN DIVORCES”, J Richard Kulerski and Kari Cornelison state that the...

When divorce terms are finalized, all the financial details for each side are clearly defined and agreed upon with the understanding that all sides will adhere to the agreement. Unfortunately, this is not always the case; many divorcing spouses owing child support and/or alimony fail to fully pay their debts...

In the last post, we started to talk about the often-disappointing realities of divorce-related decisions made by Pennsylvania courts, and how the courts’ decisions may not correspond to the reality that the divorcing spouses know. A good example of expectations not matching a judge’s decision is child support. For instance,...

Even if you are a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, judges expect you to show up for your child support hearings. They especially would like to see you if the purpose of the hearing is to discuss why you have not been paying your child support. That was...

In this difficult economy, many parents are having trouble making child support payments. But the difficult economy makes it even harder for parents who count on receiving child support to provide for their children if payments are not made. The vicious cycle has led some authorities to move in the...

Many separating parents in Pittsburgh have to struggle with the question of how much child support they feel they need, or how much they can afford to pay. The parties to a child support dispute are free to request an amount that they believe is fair, but to a great...

In our previous post, we described a child support case with some elements that might surprise Pittsburgh residents – specifically, the father’s claim that the child was the product of his being raped. The case that could set a new precedent when it comes to fathers who conceive a child...

An interesting child support case has recently arisen that may raise a few eyebrows among Pittsburgh readers. The case involves a teenage father who says that he was the victim of a rape when he had sex with his 18-year-old girlfriend. During the encounter, a baby was conceived. In this...

Pro football players for the NFL are already locked out of their workplace, and basketball players for the NBA could find themselves in a similar situation within months. If the standoffs with owners continue into the football and basketball seasons, many professional athletes could find themselves without paychecks. In anticipation...

Economics have been a factor in keeping many couples from divorcing who might otherwise have split up sooner. For those who do divorce, though, economic factors will still play a part in their lives. For one thing, divorce has wide-ranging effects on the divorced spouses’ taxes. The following are some...