The many, varied reasons why a California parent wants to change his or her child support obligation can be pretty hard to track down. Most parents feel as if their child support attorney is probably ignoring their requests.
In addition, most parents really don’t know how to legally request a change in child support. Some of them think they don’t have to; others believe it’s strictly a matter of figuring out their budget. At best, parents often think their attorney is not listening to them. At worst, parents believe their child support attorney is deliberately ignoring them.
Regardless of your opinion of your child support attorney, it’s important that you know what the law says and how it applies to you. After all, many California parents must figure out if their child support law attorney has actually done what he or she promised to do, and that includes how to legally file for a child support modification.
Here is what you need to know about Houston child support lawyer modification. This section is a bit longer and more detailed than the ones above, but it will help you understand the concept of child support modification.
First, child support modification is not automatic. Parental responsibility for paying child support ends with the final date of child support. You have to get your child support modification filed and served on the other parent so that he or she can seek to modify the child support.
From there, the other parent may file for child support modification and ask that his or her child support be increased or decreased. A modification of child support may be denied in whole or in part. In other words, a parent with a higher income may have his or her child support obligation reduced, but a parent with a lower income may have his or her child support obligation increased.
To qualify for a modification, the parent (or parents) must file a petition (also known as a request for order). If the change you request is for decreasing the support obligation, you must file your petition before the end of the last month in which the court last ordered support. If you want to modify the support obligation to increase it, you must file your petition before the end of the last month in which the court last modified the obligation.