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  • Child living with 3rd party for university

    Asking for an acquaintance:

    Mother and father share custody (50%). Child is going to university, and will be living with an uncle during that time. How does this affect child support?

    A) no change, sorta offset continues
    B) both parents pay uncle
    C) CS stops
    D) Parent that is the sibling of uncle receives table CS, other parent pays table CS. Sibling of uncle pays money to uncle.
    E) Something else?

  • #2
    They should figure out a number for living expenses and each pay a portion. Or speak to uncle and see what his increased costs are.

    Comment


    • #3
      There is no trust between the parents. There is certainly no trust between the uncle and the non-related parent. They will not sit down and work out anything.

      The non-related parent cannot trust that the uncle will provide accurate numbers, and the uncle has no interest in providing financial disclosure to the non-family parent. Child support recipients don't have to provide financial disclosure, so I imagine that the onus on a non-party is even less.

      I was asked how a judge would likely rule, and my answer was that I had no clue .

      Comment


      • #4
        Well then the uncle should do this: determine what a proper "rent" amount is for kid and give parents an invoice for it; kid can purchase his own food each week and keep those receipts; and, the costs can be calculated at the end of the year and split accordingly.

        If one parent is going to be an ass about it you cant stop that. The uncle can be reasonable and figure out costs and food can be determined. The difficult parent cant decide they arent paying because kid lives with family. There will still be a cost its just reduced.

        A judge may or may not agree. As my partners lawyer said, regardless of where kid lives, there is a standard cost associated with living expenses when kids dont live at home. The cs payor could continue to pay cs to the recipient and that money could go to the uncle for costs.

        Comment


        • #5
          Ideally B. A doesn't make sense (except during summer) because neither of the parents have living expenses connected with Kid, so why are they paying each other (offset)? C doesn't make sense because Kid is still a child of the marriage. D doesn't make sense because Kid isn't residing with the parent receiving CS.

          If I were the uncle, I'd put together an invoice for the cost of having Kid in the home during school - keeping it reasonable (what are the actual additional costs of having Kid live there [food, some utilities], not assigning a share of the mortgage etc to Kid) and present this to parents. They work out the S7 split and pay uncle. If uncle doesn't want to do this (you mentioned uncle doesn't trust non-sibling parent), uncle doesn't get paid and can take care of Kid out of the goodness of his heart.

          The only wrinkle might be that I think there's some law somewhere that says that S7 expenses cannot be paid to a family member, usually in the context of child care (usually meaning that you can't pay Grandma to babysit the kids and then expect your ex to cover a share). I don't know how or if this would apply to postsecondary costs. I think if you can make the case that Kid residing with uncle is a cheaper and equally satisfactory alternative to Kid staying in residence, it might be a legit S7.

          Comment


          • #6
            Why not look up what similar room and board in the area is going for and base the amount you give the uncle off of that? If the student could rent a room in a shared house for $500 a month utilities included then Uncle can't ask that he pay $1000. As for food... what would a typical food card at the school be? Look at that and if the student was living on residence which level of food card would they purchase.

            It doesn't have to be super difficult for the paying parent... do a little research in the area the student is living and figure out the shared costs. Email the ex with the findings and if they don't like the numbers let them take you to court and prove why you should have to pay more than what most accommodations in the area are going for.

            Comment

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