Changes in Your Child’s Needs May Affect Child Support Obligations

 Posted on November 15, 2016 in Child Support

If you are receiving child support payments from your child’s other parent, you may have come to rely on such payments. The payments you receive are intended to help you provide for your child’s basic needs, including housing, food, clothes, and other necessities of daily living. There is a good chance that you child support order also included considerations for your child’s educational and medical expenses, such as the cost of tuition, health insurance, non-covered care and other concerns. As your child grows and his or her needs change, however, you may need to revisit your child support order to see if a modification is needed.

Basic Child Support Calculations

Under Illinois law, a baseline determination for child support is done by taking into account the number of children to be supported and the supporting parent’s income. By law, either or both parent could be required to pay child support, but, in practice, such obligations are typically assigned to the parent with fewer parental responsibilities and/or less parenting time. If the parents share parental responsibilities and parenting time equally, the higher-earning spouse is likely to be required to make payments.

The minimum child support payment is usually a percentage of the supporting parent’s income, starting at 20 percent for one child and ranging up to 50 percent for six or more children. The court may also add additional obligations to account for child care costs, educational expenses, and medical care.

Evolving Over Time

As time goes by, your child’s needs are going to change. He or she may get accepted at a prestigious college preparatory school. On the other end of the spectrum, he or she may be diagnosed with a severe, chronic illness or disease requiring extensive medical treatment. If and when such changes occur, your existing support order is unlikely to be sufficient to meet your child’s needs. For this reason, the law allows a parent receiving child support to seek a modification to an existing order when there has been a significant change in the child’s circumstances or in those of either parent.

To obtain a modification, you will need to provide detailed proof of your child’s current needs and show that the existing order was not designed to meet them. If appropriate, the court will recalculate an order for support based on your new situation, allowing you and your child to move forward with a renewed sense of financial security.

Contact a Child Support Lawyer

When your child support order is no longer meeting the needs of your child, you must take action. Contact an experienced family law attorney in Lombard for guidance with your case. Call A. Traub & Associates today for a confidential consultation.

Source:

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs4.asp?DocName=075000050HPt%2E+V&ActID=2086&ChapterID=0&SeqStart=6100000&SeqEnd=8350000