Trying hard to settle with no luck yet.

[SingleDadofTwo]

Just a quick background on the proceedings. I was court ordered to pay child support on April 5th, 2011 in the amount of $715.00 which includes the extraordinary expenses. About two weeks later my wages were cut in half because of the automotive sector and the Japan situation and I notified my ex-wife that the amount was going to be hard to handle but I was going to try and make ends meet.

At the end of April I had broken my primary wrist and I was forced to take time off work and claim EI for medical reasons for which the cast remained on until mid-August. At the same time in April I approached my ex-wife and tried to work out a mutual agreement for child support which her lawyer replied saying that in no way would he look at doing that since the ink was barely dry on the original order.

At the beginning of June I gave them one last chance to reconsider which failed and I filed my paperwork with the court asking for leave of the court in regards to the 6 month rule on making changes to court orders pleading extraordinary situations as the reason. Leave of the court has been given to me but I have had to pay about $600 in expenses for her lawyer fees and doctors reports along with maintaining the higher child support in the meantime. This whole situation has left me in more of a dire financial mess then if I had just paid the original $715/month.

During our first appearance in November her lawyer said that he would settle for the $200 reduction that was originally presented to them out of court. I explained that I was wanting reimbursement for the over payment from June until now and even gave him the option of either lower payments until paid back or deducted from my ex-wife's $7000 tax return that is expected to her in March. He once again declined and we have our case conference scheduled for Jan 11th, 2012.

I have been earning $1200 a month with EI and $715 has been going to my ex-wife. I am going to be working part-time starting next week which will now boost my income by another $520 per month for a total of $1720. In the near future I will be moving to full-time with the same company which should end my financial problems and finally get me off EI.

I have been reassured by the family law office legal advisor that I should be able to be credited for the over-payment. I am not sure about that since everything else has worked against me.

What I want to accomplish in the case conference is to be awarded a fair amount for over payment while her lawyer has been delaying the case. What do you recommend?

We are not through FRO and every single payment for the past 3 years has been paid in full and on-time.

[SingleDadofTwo]

I have given a few concessions in my case conference brief that will be served to her lawyer today. I am requesting over payment at the original table rate from the case start which would result in a lump sum of $1365. I am also asking for the CS to be established at my current higher income going forward with a review scheduled in 6 months. In 6 months time I expect to be full-time with this company which means a higher income and, as always, I want to be fair to my ex-wife in regards to the CS and I figure it will give me some additional credit. I have allowed flexibility to my ex-wife in regards to the repayment of the over payment. If I don't end up getting the over payment then the whole entire procedure will be for nothing. I will post an update after Jan 11.