Waiving child support

Someone in Texas told me today that a child support recipient there can waive child support payments. That's rather surprising. Florida is pretty conservative when it comes to child support, and unless you can convince a judge of it (in law school we used to say, "There is as much law as there are judges."), child support payments can't be waived.

There is a reason for that: child support belongs to the child, not to the parent, so the parent has no right to give up the money. Judges are a little more liberal about back child support, but it's tough to get current child support payments eliminated. It's even tough to get current child support payments reduced much below Florida's guidelines schedule.

I know what you're thinking: "But the custodial parent can spend the money on anything he or she wants! The child support money doesn't even have to get spent on the child! Why can't he or she waive the money!" I hear ya. I'm not even saying I disagree. But that's the way it works.

Increasing/Decreasing child support or alimony

Child Support

Increasing or decreasing child support is a fairly common routine. Child support should probably be reviewed every three or four years to see where the incomes relate to the child support guidelines. The guidelines themselves rarely change, but, of course, incomes often do.

In addition, child support can be lowered or raised any time there is a substantial, unexpected change of circumstances, such as job loss or promotion.

Payors should also watch for a change such as a child no longer enrolled in day care, or maybe a child that was enrolled in full-time day care and is now only enrolled in after-care. Daycare and health insurance costs can have a very substantial impact on the amount of support paid, often more of an impact than an income change. When a child is no longer in daycare, child support should be reduced, so you should get to the judge as quickly as possible.

And be careful not to rush off to the lawyer just because the child support recipient gets a big raise. I hear this a lot: "My ex makes a lot more money now, so I want my child support payments to go down." It usually doesn't work that way. In fact, if the child support recipient gets a raise, the child support payments to the recipient usually go UP, not down. (I know it doesn't seem to make sense, but that's how it works.)

Alimony

Assuming the payee doesn't re-marry or live with someone, alimony rarely changes. The usual reason for alimony to be reduced is that the payor gets fired or retires. Watch out for the payor who gets himself or herself fired on purpose. Judges aren't stupid. They know that payors are only doing this to get out of alimony. We call this "voluntary underemployment," which means, "now you make a lot less and you're still going to be stuck with the alimony.

Alimony is rarely increased. About the only time alimony gets increased is if the payor claimed at the time of the divorce that he or she couldn't afford the alimony, but now circumstances have changed in such a way that the payor can now afford what the payments should have been. (Did I say that right?)