Hey everybody! It's Andy and welcome again to my office in Modesto, California. I'm
an attorney licensed to practice law in California as well as New York. In this
video I'm gonna go over the five questions that I think you should be
prepared to answer if you're going to get involved in a California child
support case. Now "child support case" in California is a bit difficult to define
because California allows child support to be set in a variety of different
cases. For instance, you know, if you have a divorce case, you know, child support
can be set there. If mom and dad never married, for example, you might not, you
know, well, obviously, you're not going to have a divorce case, but if mom and dad
never married you might have a Parentage case instead. Child support can be sent
there also. If you have a public benefits case where, for instance, the child went
on food stamps, let's say, or some other, you know, similar public benefit, there
might be a child support case as well initiated by the government to kind of
recoup that cost. So obviously, I don't know, you know, which scenario you're kind
of involved with because all I can tell is the camera that I'm speaking to. So
hopefully these questions I'm about to go over are general enough that,
regardless of the type of case you have, knowing the answer to these five
questions will actually be really helpful. So with that intro let's go
ahead and get started. The first question that I think you should be able to
answer, be prepared to answer, is what is your time share percentage. So if you're
not familiar with timeshare, what that basically means is the percentage of the
time each year - calendar year - that you actually have your child. So if I
remember right, a calendar year has eight thousand seven hundred something hours.
So if you have, you know, if you sum up all the hours that you have your child
in a given year, you know is that 40%? 50%? 70%? So you need to take, you know, all
the time that you have your child in a given week, you got to add in the holidays,
the birthdays, all that stuff and hopefully you should get a figure that
you then divide by eight thousand seven hundred something and you should get the
percentage of time in a given year that you have your child. So I'll
tell you a couple things about timeshare. The rigorous way, like the most reliable
way to actually compute it is to go through and do the long arithmetic
yourself, to, you know, count, you know, maybe use Excel or something, to actually
determine how many hours per week, etc. If you don't want to do that, like that
arithmetic, you know, it's just too confusing for you,
there are definitely tables that are available on, like online that tell
you 'okay if you have, you know, these common custody arrangements, these
arrangements equate to 15%, 20%, etc.' I'm going to go ahead and
link down below a conversion table that the Superior Court in Santa Clara County,
California actually puts out. It's in their local rules, but I'll link to it
down below. If your, like if your situation basically is a common one, like your
custody situation is a common one, hopefully that table will help you out.
Yeah so that's the first thing about about timeshare. The second thing about
timeshare is that, I guess, there can sometimes be a difference between the
timeshare that has been ordered and the timeshare that actually exists. So, for
instance, if the judge at the last court hearing, you know, ordered that you have
60 percent or you have 40 percent the other parent at 60 percent let's say, if
on paper the judge's order says you have 40 and the other parent has 60,
the parents can deviate from that. So let's say for instance after that last,
after the most recent court order, you know, the other parent tells you 'Hey,
you know, can you keep the kid more often, can you keep our kid more often? I
have, you know, all these other things at work. Traffic's killing me, etc. Tell
you what, why doesn't the kid stay with you more often.' Yeah, so if that's the case,
the parents generally do have the ability to kind of modify the
arrangement, but if they have done that, you know, and you are the parent who
actually has the kid more often than the court orders specify, it is possible that
your timeshare, you know, your actual timeshare, is more than what it
says on paper. If you're, you know, trying to compute child support, having an
accurate timeshare figure is generally really important. So, I think
that's all for timeshare. Let's move on to question number two. So question
number two is going to be what is the gross monthly income of each parent? So I
guess if you're wondering what, what's included in income, that's Family
Code Section 4058. 4-0-5-8. Linked down below
just in case you're interested, but I guess if you're one of those people who
is fortunate enough to have, you know, a salaried job. Your paycheck is basically
regular, predictable like every two weeks, computing your gross monthly income is
actually really easy. I have a separate video on my channel that goes over how
to compute monthly income when you have paychecks every week, er, sorry every two weeks.
I'll see if I can fit that video on the screen or somewhere, but if I can't, I
will link it down below for you. But if you have, you know, regular paychecks,
predictable salary, computing gross monthly income is actually not difficult.
If, however, you have irregular kind of, I guess, payment schedules or payment
schemes, so let's say, for instance, you have a job but your income is largely
dictated by bonuses, for some reason, and the bonuses vary in terms of how often
you get them, how much they are, etc. If you have a job where your income is
largely commissioned based, you know, that will vary also depending on sales volume,
returns, I think, you know often times are credited against commission. So if you
have a seasonal job, if you work two jobs or three jobs or something,
computing gross monthly income can be difficult. It's not, you know, always a
straightforward type of computation. I wouldn't say it's difficult, like it's
not hard math but it just is more, you know, cumbersome, I guess, if that's the right
word to compute gross monthly income. So, um, well I guess now that I've said it's
cumbersome, you know, this next point might be kind of a pain, but if you have
the ability to do the math, like if you, you know, if you can force yourself, if
you can get someone to help you, I would highly recommend that you actually take
ownership and actually do the gross monthly income computation yourself.
Do it for your own, like do it for your own income and do it for the other
parent's income because if you don't do that and you go into court, will the
judge do it for you? Sure. Will the lawyers do it for you? Sure. However, if
you've ever been to court before, I'm sure you'd notice real quick that court
generally is really crowded, you know, there are a lot of cases, the lawyers and
the judges are rushing about and stuff. Can they make a mistake by accident?
Absolutely. Do they? They try not to. I mean every, every judge and lawyer that I've
ever encountered in a child support case generally wants to do a good job, but you
know accidents happen. So if the accident happens and it results in you paying
more child support that you're supposed to. You know, I mean, hopefully it all goes
to your child, but, you know, generally that's going to be something where you
don't want to pay more child support than you are supposed to because that
detracts, er, subtract, sorry, that removes income rather that you could spend on
other more productive things, let's say, paying rent, buying food, etc. So yeah, do
try and do the computation yourself if you in any way can. Yeah so anyway that's
number two, computing the gross monthly income of each parent.
Number three actually kind of goes over why timeshare and gross monthly income
are important. So most people who deal with child support - who pay it or receive
it - they generally view it as a single figure - $900 a month, $1300 a month, whatever.
The law in California actually breaks it out much more fine, I guess, finely if
that's a word. Much more like they break it up much more specifically than
just $900 or $1300. So child support generally is going to have
several parts. The first part is the guideline amount. That amount is the same
all throughout the state of California. It's not dependent on geography. Any
child with parents who make that particular, the same income, who have
that same timeshare, will be entitled to the same guideline amount.
So there is a formula to compute guideline amount. That's actually Family Code
section 4055. It is not an easy formula to use. I'll tell you that right
now, so but if you want to go ahead and give it a shot, you're more than welcome
to. Most everybody - actually I take that back -
probably everyone that I've ever met who deals with child support they, generally
will use computer programs to do it. Dissomaster is a very common one. I use
one called Xspouse X-S-P-O-U-S-E. That one it's, it's similar to Dissomaster,
but both of those programs you generally have to pay for. If you are, you
know, doing this case yourself, you're trying to learn and so forth, there are
definitely free child support calculators online. I'm going to go ahead
and link to one down below that has or that's run by the state of California.
It's not an easy calculator to use. It's pretty accurate, but it is not easy so
you might have to try it several times, persevere, and stuff. Yeah so anyway, the guideline
amount, that's just one piece of child support.
The second piece of child support is called the Add-On. So the Add-On is
called that basically because it's added on to the guideline amount. So the
Add-On has two parts. Number one is the mandatory part. Number two is the
discretionary part. The mandatory part - all of this is in Family Code section 50, sorry,
4062. 4-0-6-2. Links down below as always. So if it's if
it's the mandatory part that generally is two, is two things. Number one is
child care for the custodial parent to go to work and school or and/or
school. Number two, the second mandatory Add-On, is going to be medical expenses
for the child that health insurance does not cover. So as part of child support,
the parents are required to provide health insurance for their child. Health
insurance, depending on which kind you have, is not going to cover, er, is not
necessarily going to cover everything. Whatever expenses, you know, health
insurance does not cover, the parents, you know, will have to cover it and that's
what this mandatory Add-On is meant for. The discretionary part of child support,
sorry, the discretionary part of the Add-On to child support rather, is called
that, not surprisingly, because it's discretionary. So the two most common
ones that I've seen: number one extracurricular activities. For example,
if your child is in junior high and there's, you know, expenses for sports
that your child likes to play, summer camp that your child wants to go to, etc.
The second part is going to be, you know, travel expenses. So if for instance, you
know, mom and dad live really far apart from one another and the child has to
fly back and forth several times a month let's say, the cost of those plane
tickets might be added on to child support so it allows the child
to see both parents frequently and so on. So yeah, I guess that's what, you know, the
add-on portion is. Again Family Code section 4062 in
California. So number four, I guess, I'll mention it but I'll be the first to admit
I don't know how realistic it is for the average person. So because, you know,
there are free child support calculators online, because, you know, proof of income
generally has to be exchanged and kind of served prior to the court hearing, it
is actually possible to do the child support computation yourself prior to court hearing. So
if you, if you don't do it yourself and you go to court, will the judge do it?
Sure but if you could do it yourself and you know the numbers yourself, if you go
to court, again if, if the judge does something differently, you know, you can
always ask and maybe you catch a mistake that the judge makes or
something like that. So it is more beneficial to be fully prepared, I guess,
if you're going to go into a child support hearing. So it is something where
you can, you know, generally compute, do all the child support computations
yourself prior to going into court. If you can, definitely do that. Hopefully you
can, you know, prevent any errors that might otherwise occur. So I will tell you
also that if you are going to a child support hearing, if you
do the numbers beforehand, it can actually save you from potential, I
guess embarrassment, if that's the right word here, you can, you can save yourself, you
know, kind of embarrassment or negative outcomes and stuff. I guess I'll try
to make this as general as I can. So let's say you're the parent who is
paying child support and let's say you find out some fact that causes you to
believe that, you know, child support, your child support should be reduced because
the mom is making more money now, let's say. So you go ahead and you file the
paperwork, you set a court date and you go into
court really, really gung-ho that your child support is going to be reduced,
and you're going to have an extra 500 bucks a month to kind of, you know, spend or
save and stuff. However, let's say that in your rush or your, you're sort of
like you're so focused or tunnel-visioned on reducing your child support that you
ignore some fact over here or you do the math wrong and stuff and because of the
error that you didn't even think about, this child support that you thought was
going to be reduced actually is increased because this fact by itself
would have reduced your child support but these facts over here would have
increased your child support and the net amount is still an increase for you, but
because you're so tunnel-visioned on this, psychologically all you saw was
this. You were completely blind to these facts over here. However if you actually
did the computation yourself, it's something where you could have, you know
caught it, and possibly saved yourself the expense of going to court or saved
yourself the embarrassment, the emotional letdown,
the ego bruise, etc. So the last thing, question number five that I will go over,
basically pertains to modifications. So, well I guess, if you didn't know, child
support can be set at any time that the child is is a minor. So child support, I
think the youngest I've seen child, child support, sorry, the youngest child rather,
that I have seen child support set for, I want to say was two months old. Two-
three months roughly. So child support in California, I mean there are some
exceptions, but generally the rule of thumb that I go by is transport goes
until age 18 at least. So you can kind of imagine that
between age two months and age 18 years, you know, there's a lot of time in there.
So child support can definitely be modified while the child is still a
minor. A lot of times, however, I think people who are doing their cases
themselves, they, they want to modify just because. In other words
they're angry. They went to court one time, they lost they and they immediately
want to go and get it modified again. In general, if you want to do a modification,
you generally have to have a good reason to do it. In law it's called good
cause or a material change in circumstances. So if you are trying to do
a modification, you should be able to kind of articulate or, you know, explain
what your good reason is before you engage in all the modification sort of
process. Yeah so I guess, there are definitely cases where
parents try to do the modification just, just because like I said or just
out of anger and they really don't have a good reason. They generally, like
they loose, basically, and it's just a big waste of time it's, it's embarrassing, etc.
So do your preparation, figure out what your good cause is, get all your evidence
in order, that's the way to, like that's the way to prevail and be
successful. So hopefully all of that helps. I'm going to try my best to
summarize real quickly. So question number one, you should be able to to kind
of articulate what your timeshare is, do the computations. Number two, you should,
you should be able to again articulate and know the computations behind what
each parent's gross monthly income is. Number three, you should be able to, you
know, gather all the evidence and kind of know what discretionary Add-Ons apply
for your particular case. You should know what child care expenses are, you should
know what health insurance expenses are, and so forth.
Number four, you should ideally be able to do the computation yourself for child
support so you should know what the judge is going to order. Theoretically
you can do that and if you can do that, hopefully that saves you time
and embarrassment, etc. You know you're not going to be surprised.
Realistically you might not be able to do it, but if you can, try to. The last
point here, point number five, question number five
is that if you are going to do a modification, you need to be able to
articulate and know what your good cause is, what your change in circumstance is
because if you don't have that, the judge is going to go 'Well nothing's changed. I'm
not going to change my order' and you'll lose. So hopefully all of that made
sense. Yeah again, if you have a comment of some kind of regarding say a question
that you know you would not have included, or, sorry that you would have
included, that these five that I went over you would not included, go ahead
and leave me that down below. Tell me what, you know, what other questions you
would have included on this list or something. So yeah, so anyway hopefully
all that helps. Go ahead and comment, share, like, subscribe, all that nice stuff and I
will talk to you guys next time. Thanks.