Law Offices
DIVORCE LAWYER IN TRENTON
TRENTON - DEARBORN - northville - Sterling Hts
Michigan
Wayne Oakland Macomb Counties
Nichols& Eberth
CHILD SUPPORT
Child support is provided and sometimes modified throughout the child's life until the child is of the adult age of 18 years old. Read the following about child support law.
How Child Support Is Calculated:
Child Support Arrearages:
If you are behind on child support, the court calls these arrearages. Once a child support payment comes due, the court will deem it owed, and they will not allow you to go back to eliminate the arrearages, something called retroactive modification. (There are some states that do allow this … Michigan is not one of them). There is one exception – if the amount that you are seeking to be forgiven is owed only to the other spouse (not also to the State of Michigan) and the other spouse agrees in writing to allow it to be waived. Otherwise, you need to make arrangements to pay back the arrearages in full.
You should always make even a partial payment on support as a serious delinquency in payment could result in your being arrested for non-payment.
Child Support Modification:
The Michigan family law courts do allow you to request a modification of future child support payments (not arrears) due to a change in income or some other factor that effects the child support formula. Nichols & Eberth, P.C., can assist you in seeking the modification of the child support order from the court. Please keep in mind that you are bound by any current child support orders until the court changes them with a new order.
If you are the one paying the support, you also need to keep in mind that failure of your employer to take the money out of your pay is not a valid excuse in court for not paying the child support. The court requires that you make the payment personally, if the employer does not take it from your pay.
Michigan family law courts use a child support formula to determine how much child support is to be paid by one party to the other. The formula cannot be deviated from, absent some very specific exceptions that are allowed under the law.
The main factors that determine the amount of child support are the relative incomes of the parties, the number of children, the cost of health insurance and day care, and the number of overnights that the children have with each parent.