Child Support

May 12, 2012

Usher’s Child Custody Confessions

Famous R & B artist Usher is currently litigating a hotly contested custody case with his former wife Tameka. Tameka and Usher were married for two short years before Usher filed for divorce in 2009. Currently the couple shares joint custody of their two young sons. On Tuesday May 1, the pair attended a court hearing in Georgia where the judge ordered them to work out some type of agreement “or else.” The judge instructed them to attempt to reach a temporary child custody and visitation arrangement in a private mediation setting. If they were unable to reach an agreement, the judge would impose a temporary order upon Usher and Tameka. In this case, the two would have no control over the outcome.

It is common in the San Diego family court system for a judge to order parties to attempt reaching a mutually acceptable agreement. Negotiating and mediating disputes, especially those regarding child custody, result in less turmoil in an already hostile situation. This approach tends to promote cooperation and a healthy co-parenting relationship between the parties that is in the best interest of the child. However, when domestic violence is involved in a case, party negotiations will be ineffective and unsuccessful.

March 27, 2012

Paternity and Child Support – What San Diego Dads Should Know

By Bickford Blado & Botros

Under California family law statutes, paternity can be established in a number of ways depending on the relationship between the father and mother. Through the combination of statute-mandated presumptions and DNA testing, determinations regarding paternity made by the court can have a significant impact on child custody and child support.

An unmarried father must sign a paternity declaration in order for his name to appear on a child’s birth certificate. The paternity declaration is significant because it creates both support obligations and parental rights for the father. In San Diego, there is a rebuttable presumption that a man who accepts a child into his home and openly holds that child out to be his own is the child’s biological father. This presumption is rebuttable through the use of blood tests to determine paternity. If no blood tests are conducted and introduced into paternity proceedings, the man is presumed to be the child’s father.

A child conceived during a martial relationship in which the wife is cohabitating with the husband is presumed to be a child of the marriage. In other words, the mother’s husband is presumptively the child’s father. If the husband is sterile or impotent, the marital presumption will not apply. This presumption may be overcome through the use of blood or DNA testing to determine paternity. The presumed father must petition for court-ordered blood testing within two years of the child’s birth. Therefore, unless a motion is filed within the two-year statute of limitations and blood testing establishes the husband is not the father, the mother’s husband is conclusively presumed to be the father. The presumption will still apply even if another man is proven to be the biological father of the child.

March 1, 2012

Texting Can have a BIG Impact on your Divorce Case

By Bickford Blado & Botros

We have blogged several times about the potential problems that Facebook and other social media sites can have on a divorce. The same potential for problems also applies to the text messages you send. Although it is sometimes difficult to get text messages into evidence (meaning properly in front of a judge), once the text message is in evidence, it could change the outcome of your case!Unlike Facebook and other social media posts, text messages cannot be deleted or recalled. Any text that you send to your spouse, or even to a third party, can end up being used against you in a divorce. With phones now having up to 64 gigabytes of storage, or more, texts from many years ago could end up being presented as evidence to the judge in your divorce case.

• If you threaten to harm your spouse in a text, that may be the basis for a restraining order, or even criminal prosecution.

• If you call your spouse names in texts, the judge could end up with an unfavorable opinion of you.

• If you say one thing in your declaration (such as, “I do not use drugs”) and text something contrary to your spouse or a third party (such as, “I can’t believe how stoned I was at the party”), you will ruin your credibility with the judge.

In a recent story on NPR, Ken Altshuler, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, provided the following tips for keeping your texts out of court, upon which I elaborate:

• Do not text your spouse anything that you would not want a judge to see. This also applies to Facebook and other social media posts, messages or comments, emails, and even voice mail messages. It is always best to assume that any text, anything you write or any voice message you leave for your spouse will end up in front of your judge. Some examples of what not to post, blog or text about can be found here.

• If your spouse or former spouse sends you an inappropriate text, do not respond in kind because a judge will see that. The judge usually does not care who started an inappropriate exchange because the exchange is usually just a small part of the bigger picture. In one of my cases after reviewing hateful emails back and forth between the parties, the judge (slightly misquoting Mercutio’s famous line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Julie), said “A pox on both your houses.” When the other party blurted out, “She started it!” the judge replied, “Sir, two wrongs do not make a right – and your emails back to here were totally inappropriate, no matter who started it.”

• Do not send messages that set your spouse up for an inappropriate or angry response. On the other hand, some Judges will look into who started it. You do not want your judge to find that you were the party that started it, or someone who is baiting the other side. This could ruin your credibility with the judge for the rest of your case.

• If you are worked up and want to send your spouse a message, take time to calm down before putting anything in writing. Again, if it is in writing, you must assume that your judge will eventually read it. If you are unsure about a written response to your spouse, send it to your attorney for review before sending it to your spouse.

Always remember, do not text anything to anyone that you would want the family law judge in your case to see or read.
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February 23, 2012

How do I collect unpaid or back child support in San Diego?

By Bickford Blado & Botros

How do I collect unpaid or back child support in San Diego?

Times are tough already between the economy and normal monthly expenses stacking up. The last thing a custodial parent needs is to worry about obtaining and collecting child support. Attorneys in the San Diego area can help you obtain and collect unpaid or back child support that is owed to you.

Why do I need a Child Support Order?

If you are the primary custodial parent, you have a right to child support to help with your monthly expenses. The non-custodial parent is just as responsible for providing for the child(ren) as you are. Having an oral agreement for child support with the non-custodial parent is not good enough. You need to obtain an order from the court for the child support agreement to be enforceable. Without a court order the non-custodial parent has no legal obligation to pay child support to you even if you have agreed to terms for child support payments. If the co-parent stops paying the amount of child support you informally agreed to, then you will have little recourse if he or she stops making payments and you will not be able to collect arrears for the months they did not pay or only partially paid.

How do I file for child support?

Obtaining a court order is easier than it sounds and the state’s enforcement tools (discussed below) often provide incentive for the non-custodial parent to pay child support.

If you were not married to the child’s parent at the time the child was conceived, you will have to first file a Petition to Establish a Parental Relationship (“Petition”) to establish paternity. You will need to provide your attorney, and the court, whatever information you have about the other parent’s whereabouts and your relationship with that person. The Petition also allows the court to make child support orders once paternity is established.

If you were married when the child was born, paternity is presumed unless the other parent challenges paternity. However, you will have to file an Order to Show Cause to obtain child support. The court will determine a guideline amount based on both parent’s income, timeshare with the children, and various other factors.
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November 29, 2011

The Impact of New Mate or Partner Income on Attorney Fees

By Bickford Blado & Botros

As a San Diego Divorce Attorney, when a client remarries, he or she often wonders if their new spouse’s income will impact child support and spousal support. Recently, a client in the midst of a divorce in which status was previously granted (meaning the parties were no longer married) but the issues of spousal support and attorney fees were not yet resolved, who was about to remarry, asked about the impact of new spouse income on the issue of spousal and child support.

Previously, I blogged about the impact of new mate income on child support and spousal support orders. To summarize:

1) For child support, except in “extraordinary cases,” new spouse or non-marital partner income is generally not considered when calculating guideline child support, although the court may inquire into a new spouse’s income for the purpose of seeing how it would impact the remarried party’s tax filing status and tax bracket when calculating guideline child support.

November 1, 2011

CAN I FIND OUT HOW MUCH MY EX SPOUSE CURRENTLY EARNS?

By Bickford Blado & Botros

As a San Diego Family Law Attorney, I often receive calls from former clients asking if they can find out their former spouses current income without incurring a lot of attorney fees or filing an expensive, time-consuming motion. Here are two examples of those calls:

• One former client suspected her Ex-Husband was earning significantly more than he was a year ago when their divorce was finalized because he recently bought a new car and moved into a bigger house. He refused to tell her his current income. If true, the amount of child support she receives could increase.

• Another former client knew that his Ex-Wife received a promotion, but did not know if a raise came with the promotion. She refused to tell him if she received a raise. If she received a raise along with her promotion, then his child support obligation would decrease, or depending on how much of a raise she received, he might be eligible to receive child support from her.Fortunately for both clients, the Family Code provides for a way to obtain a current Income and Expense Declaration by permitting a party to engage in inexpensive post-Judgment discovery prior to filing a Motion for Modification of Child, Family or Spousal Support. More specifically, at any time after the entry of a Judgment of Dissolution or Legal Separation that provides for the payment of child or family support, either party, no more than once per year, may request the other party to produce a completed current Income and Expense Declaration with copies of that party’s pay stubs and prior year state and federal income tax returns attached.

A request for a current Income and Expense Declaration with a copy of the prior year tax return and pay stubs is the only limited discovery allowed if a Motion for Modification or Termination of the Support Order is not pending. That means if a party wants to engage in other methods of discovery, such as Interrogatories (which are questions asked of the other party) or a Request for Documents, then he or she would first need to file a Motion for Modification or Termination of the Support Order.

By allowing a party to obtain an Income and Expense Declaration from their former spouse, the requesting party can determine whether filing a Motion for Modification is appropriate. If it turns out that there is no change of income, then the filing of a Motion for Modification could be expensive, especially if there is no (or minimal) change to the amount of support paid or received.

Sometimes, a former spouse will ignore the request for a current Income and Expense Declaration. If this occurs, the Family Code provides that if there is no response within 35 days, or if the Income and Expense Declaration is incomplete as to any wage information, or if pay stubs and income tax returns are not attached, then the requesting party may serve a Request for Income and Benefit Information directly on the employer of the other party. The non-responding party may also be sanctioned by the court for his or her failure to comply with the initial request.

Please contact us if you wish to obtain a current Income and Expense Declaration from your former spouse, or if you have received a Request for Production of An Income and Expense Declaration After Judgment from your former spouse.
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September 30, 2011

Alimony, Child Support, Property Division, a Financial Trifecta in San Diego Divorces

By Bickford Blado & Botros

Massachusetts has passed a landmark law regarding alimony payments, The Wall Street Journal reports. The new law aims to end lifetime payments, particularly in retirement or once a former spouse finds a new partner.

Divorcing couples should know and understand the distinct differences between child support and alimony or spousal support in San Diego. Spousal support is generally treated as taxable income for the receiver and as a tax deduction for the payer. Child support is tax free for the recipient but not deductible for the payer.Child support may be more collectible than spousal support — i.e. the court system may be more likely to enforce the court’s orders. And, of course, as we reported this summer on our San Diego Divorce Attorneys Blog, cohabitation or remarriage generally does not impact child support payments in San Diego or elsewhere in California. That is not necessarily true of alimony or spousal support.

Spousal support can be awarded on a temporary or permanent basis. Temporary spousal support usually covers the period of time between separation and when a divorce ends. Permanent alimony is typically awarded based on the length of the marriage. A short-term marriage in California, one lasting less than 10 years, may result in an alimony award lasting up to half the length of the marriage. In long-term marriages, judges are given great discretion and payments may be awarded indefinitely.

Together with the initial property awarded to each spouse, the trifecta will go a long way toward determining your future quality of life.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, the recession has brought the contentious issue of long-term alimony to a boiling point. Statistics show unemployment has hit males the hardest. And, as the Baby Boomer generation hits the gates to retirement, many former husbands are looking to reduce or eliminate payments. The Tennessee Supreme Court recently ruled lifetime alimony was inappropriate if a woman was in good health, had a stable job and had received considerable assets during a division of property. And Florida recently set a higher bar for permanent spousal support awards.

The new law in Massachusetts takes effect next March. Those paying lifetime alimony can apply for modifications beginning in 2013. For women counting on these payments in retirement, a reversal could be financially devastating. The New York Times reports the Massachusetts law calls for alimony for up to half the length of a marriage lasting less than five years. For long-term marriages — those lasting 15 to 20 years — payments could last for up to 80 percent of the length of the marriage.

Your attorney needs to work toward a divorce agreement that adequately provides in all three areas: property division, spousal support and child support. The pros and cons of each award must be weighed with the client’s financial future in mind.
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September 15, 2011

Support Stipulations

By Bickford Blado & Botros

The Associate Press is reporting that Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt will keep paying $225,000 in temporary spousal support to his ex-wife, Jamie McCourt, over the next couple of months, but that money once used toward the mortgages of six luxurious homes will come from a $1.1 million escrow account funded by the sale of one of their other homes that was located near the Playboy Mansion.

When child and spousal support are at issue in a San Diego divorce, the issues can be resolved two way; either by agreement of the parties, or the court will make an order after having a hearing on the issue.

When parties reach a support agreement outside of a court hearing, either on their own or through their attorneys, the agreement is called a “Stipulation.” To become effective, the terms of the Stipulation must be written down and filed with the court.

June 30, 2011

The Impact of Cohabitation and Remarriage on Child and Spousal Support

By Bickford Blado & Botros

After a divorce, one party may decide to cohabit or remarry. As a San Diego divorce attorney, when this occurs, clients (or former clients) ask questions about the impact of cohabitation or remarriage on child support and spousal support.

What is Cohabitation?

Everyone know what remarriage means, but what about cohabitation? Does staying overnight qualify as cohabitation?

June 24, 2011

Schwarzenegger is paying for private school tuition; might a court order you to too?

By Bickford Blado & Botros

As the details of our former Governor’s extramarital indiscretions continue to emerge, it is somewhat surprising that neither party has filed for divorce. But while the parties have yet to file for divorce, it appears they are already addressing an issue that arises in most divorce cases involving children: child support.

Radar Online reports that Schwarzenegger is already paying child support to Maria Shriver. In fact, according to the online source, it’s been reported that Schwarzenegger is paying “a significant amount of child support” and that he is “also paying for his sons, Patrick and Christopher’s private school bills.”

While in this case it appears that Schwarzenegger is voluntarily paying for the parties’ son’s private school tuition, will a court ever order a party to do so absent their agreement? The short answer is yes, under certain circumstances.