When your child support order no longer fits

What you’re facing

You might be the parent who pays and can’t keep up anymore. You might be the parent who receives and can’t make it stretch. Either way, I work on both sides of these cases, and the rules are the same for both.

In Washington, child support is calculated from a statewide schedule based on both parents’ incomes and the children’s needs. It isn’t a number anyone picks out of the air, which means when the inputs change, the number can change too.

There are two main ways to ask:

• An adjustment. If your order is at least two years old and either parent’s income has changed, you can usually ask the court to recalculate the amount. This is generally the simpler, faster route, but it only changes the dollar figure.
• A modification. If something substantial has changed that nobody could have counted on when the order was made, you can ask at any time. A job loss, an illness or injury that keeps someone from working, or a real change in what the children need are the usual examples. A modification can also change other parts of the order, like how daycare, school costs, and uninsured medical bills are shared.

What happens next

1. First, keep paying what the order says.

   Until a judge signs a new order, the old one is the order. If you stop paying or pay less on your own, the unpaid amount still builds up, and in almost every case the court can’t erase it later.

2. Second, don’t wait for things to settle.

   This is the part that costs people the most. A change in support usually reaches back only to the date you filed, not to the date your life changed. If you lost your job in March and file in September, those months generally stay at the old amount. If something has changed, call me now, even if you’re not sure it’s enough.

3. Then we look at whether you qualify.

   Some changes don’t count. A choice like quitting a job, taking a lower-paying one, or going back to school usually won’t support a reduction. Something the court already knew about when it set the original order won’t either. I’ll tell you plainly whether your situation is likely to qualify before you spend money finding out.

4. Then we file and serve the other parent.

   They have a period to respond, usually anywhere from 20 to 90 days depending on where and how they’re served. In most support cases the judge decides on the written paperwork, without a hearing where you testify. That means the paperwork has to be right, and complete, the first time.

How I work

I start with the numbers. I’ll ask for both parents’ income information if we can get it, the current order and its worksheets, and the real costs of raising your children now: daycare, health insurance, school, activities. Then I’ll run the schedule and tell you what range I’d expect, and why. I won’t promise you a number. The schedule has room in it, and the judge decides.

These cases are often smaller than divorces, and I treat them with the same care. For a lot of families, a few hundred dollars a month is the difference between making rent and not. I know that, and I’ll handle your case that way.

If your case is handled through the state’s Division of Child Support rather than a court order, or if your order came from another state, the route is different. I’ll tell you which one applies to you in the first conversation, and if you don’t need me, I’ll say so.