Ensuring Your Child’s Financial Needs Are Met

Compassionate Child Support Lawyers in PA

Determining Child Support In A Divorce

Both parents have a financial responsibility to support their children. Child Support is financial support that one parent pays for the basic needs of the minor child/children. The duty to support a child exists whether or not the parents are married. Even if a parent is denied visitation (Physical Custody), there is still a financial obligation that needs to be met. This obligation continues until the minor child/children are 18 years old or graduates from highschool, typically the latter of the two.

How do you get a support order?

To get a support order, you must first, go to your local Domestic Relations office and file for a Complaint for Support. You do not need an attorney to handle this first step. Upon the filing of the Complaint for Support, your case will be scheduled with a conference officer at Domestic Relations. At this conference, you can expect to share financial information in regards to your income and your expenses. Pennsylvania uses the shared income model where both parents’ incomes are combined as if they were still a family unit. Statutory guidelines are then used to determine the amount of support the child/children require and what each parent’s contribution towards that support amount will be.

Other factors that can determine child support payments

There are other factors that can also determine the amount of child support paid or received, such as costs of health insurance, extraordinary expenses of one of the parties, and the amount of overnights the minor child/children spend with each parent. There can be more complex aspects to a child support calculation such as determining what counts as income.

Like Custody, it is your legal right as a parent to request that a support order be modified or changed at any time that would warrant. Circumstances that would warrant this change could be a job change, health issues or even a change in the Physical Custody.

At Harold Shepley & Associates, you can expect us to guide you through the process of child support to get the best possible outcome for the financial support of your children.

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