After a separation or divorce, parents remain responsible for supporting their children, even if the children primarily live with the other parent. State law ensures that children receive the financial support they need by establishing child support obligations for both parents. Child support proceedings can sometimes lead to disagreements between parents.
Contact Berkley Oliver PLLC, today for a free consultation with a family law attorney to discuss your and your child’s rights and options and learn more about the child support process. Our attorneys have dedicated their careers to providing clients with the highest standard of legal representation. You can rest assured that our firm will always stand by you and work for your best interests.
Understanding Child Support
Under Kentucky law, parents must provide financial support to their minor children. When parents separate or divorce, the court calculates child support to determine if either parent must contribute. This calculation is based on factors such as the parents’ gross income, childcare expenses, healthcare costs, and parenting time. Courts can order child support in cases involving divorce, child support disputes, paternity, and domestic violence. They can order child support in divorce cases, child support cases, paternity actions, and domestic violence cases.
In a divorce or custody agreement, parents have broad discretion to establish terms for supporting their children. These agreements can cover expenses for tutoring, extracurricular activities, or private school. They may also include provisions for adult children pursuing higher education or trade school, including sharing tuition or living expenses.
Kentucky’s Child Support Guidelines
Courts in Kentucky typically calculate a parent’s child support obligations by using the state’s child support guidelines. The guidelines use mathematical formulas to calculate support obligations based on various data, such as:
- The parents’ respective monthly incomes or imputed monthly income
- Any child support payments for other children
- Child care costs
- The child’s health insurance premiums
- Each parent’s contribution to the child’s monthly expenses
Courts may also account for equal parenting time arrangements, factoring the number of overnights the child spends with each parent to reflect the expenses incurred to support their child.
Courts may deviate from the child support guidelines when parents earn high incomes to ensure that children receive the financial support they would have received if their parents continued to live together.
What Happens When a Parent Fails to Pay Child Support?
When a parent fails to make required child support payments, the receiving parent can seek relief from the court. A parent can file a motion for contempt, after which the court will schedule a hearing to consider evidence of the non-paying parent’s failure to pay child support. When the court holds a parent in contempt for not paying child support, it can impose various methods for forcing the parent to make their regular payments and make up any missed payments (arrears), including:
- Ordering the parent’s employer to withhold child support payments from the parent’s paycheck and send the withheld amounts to the state to forward to the receiving parent
- Withholding child support amount from the non-paying parent’s tax refunds
- Suspending the non-paying parent’s driver’s license
- Impose a sentence of thirty (30) days or up to six (6) months in jail
Modifying Child Support Orders
Child support obligations reflect parents’ legal duty to financially support their children. However, a parent’s obligation can change in response to changes in the family’s financial situation. A parent can file a motion to modify their family’s current child support order, which requires them to prove changed circumstances since the entry of the current order.
For example, when a parent experiences a substantial increase in income, the law recognizes that the parent’s children should share in their parent’s good fortune. The court may recalculate the parent’s child support obligation under the guidelines and modify the support order. Other common examples of circumstances under which a parent might seek to modify child support include:
- Changes to the child’s expenses, such as increased medical expenses in response to the child developing chronic health conditions or disabilities
- Significant long-term reduction in a parent’s income, if the court finds that the parent has not voluntarily reduced their income
- Changes to the family’s custody arrangement, including changes in the balance of overnights exercised by the parents
- Increases in childcare or insurance costs
Courts typically modify child support orders when the calculated support amount changes by 15 percent or more.
How Can Berkley Oliver, PLLC, Help You with Your Family’s Child Support Case?
When you need to establish or modify a support order for your child, turn to the legal team at Berkley Oliver PLLC, to help you and your family by:
- Helping you gather your and the other parent’s financial information for the child support guidelines
- Explaining your rights and options under Kentucky’s child support laws
- Preparing and filing your petitions to establish or modify child support
- Arguing your case to the court, such as showing changed family circumstances warranting modification
- Helping you pursue enforcement of child support obligations, including filing motions for contempt and advocating for court orders that will compel payment
Contact Us Today for a Confidential Consultation to Discuss Your Family’s Options
When you and your child’s other parent have separated or divorced, you need strong legal representation to protect your and your child’s rights and interests during child support proceedings. Contact the team at Berkley Oliver, PLLC today for a case evaluation to go over your legal options with a child support lawyer.