Can a Temp Order for Reduction of CS Be Revoked?

[#1StepMom]

Does anyone know if a temporary court order granting the payor a reduction in child support be revoked at a later date, putting the payor in arrears?

The senario:
- Payor pays X amount in child support.
- Payor loses job, cannot afford to pay X amount in child support.
- Payor informs recipient of job loss; recipient demands he continues paying X amount, despite the change in his financial circumstance.
- Payor file motion to change in court, seeking an order for a reduction.
- Four months later, payor obtains a reduction, retroactive two months.
- New court order is sent to FRO to make adjustments to child support amount.
- For 4 months after receiving the new support order, FRO continued to withdraw X amount in child support, for a total of 6 months of overpayment.
- Recipient claims that since the Payor was able to maintain paying X amount of child support, (through no choice of his own; FRO was just withdrawing monthly from his account, draining it on a regular basis), he was not in any financial distress to merit a reduction in child support.
- Recient is seeking that the reduction granted by temporary order four months ago be revoked and that the payor be held accountable for X amount in child support for all six of his months of unemployment.


How likely is it for the Recipient's request to be refused by the judge?

[doingmybest]

I understand the frustration with this and the FRO and the CS and the financial hardship....I obviously cannot live in this persons shoes, and my personal opinion would be that if cause has been shown that there is no income and no $$ then the temporary granted order should stay in place, until the payor gets back on his feet. With financial statements and letter of employment and EI...support and evidence.

I am just wondering: the child/ren are still living and well.....someone has to pay for them to eat and try to keep their life as usual. I just hope they are still being taken care of properly, with this decreased income.

[#1StepMom]

I understand the frustration with this and the FRO and the CS and the financial hardship....I obviously cannot live in this persons shoes, and my personal opinion would be that if cause has been shown that there is no income and no $$ then the temporary granted order should stay in place, until the payor gets back on his feet. With financial statements and letter of employment and EI...support and evidence.

I am just wondering: the child/ren are still living and well.....someone has to pay for them to eat and try to keep their life as usual. I just hope they are still being taken care of properly, with this decreased income.

Yes, the child is still living and well. Heck, his mom took him to DisneyWorld over the March Break! So obviously there is no shortage of food or other living necessities.

The reduction wasn't much... less than $100 per month. The reduced amount wasn't even based on my husband's EI benefits, but rather on an imputed income the judge felt was required as a contribution to support the child. (This, although may be good in theory, made me wonder why we have child support guidelines and tables if they aren't used to calculate the child support amount based on actual income.)

Either way, due to FRO's inability to adjust child support deductions based on a new support order, I have been the one indirectly paying the child support, by supplying my husband with money into his bank account so as to not have problems with FRO if they weren't able to withdraw his monthly child support. Many say we should've just let the account run dry - after all, my husband has no income other than EI, but we did not want to risk having problems with FRO, on top of all the problems we already have with them. You know what I mean?

Anyhow, the reduction was necessary and somewhat just. The fact that FRO kept withdrawing the higher amount for the past 6 months is not due to anything done or not done on our part. We did everything we could to change the order and provide FRO with the new order.

The question is... if my husband received a reduction, necessary due to a change in financial circumstance, however is now willing to commence paying child support in an amount based on the income of his newly obtained position... can a judge revoke the reduction because my husband (through no fault or choice of his own) continued paying the non-reduced amount during the time of his unemployment?

[Suchislife]

I don't see a reason why an order would be revoked in your situation.
Obviously the reduction was warranted. Maybe this Judge would even think the imputed income amount was nonsense.

As far as the recipient claiming the payor could maintain the higher payments, that's crap.
MOST people WOULD have the money in their account to cover a CS payment because some of those monies would of course be for other things.

The only way you could have got around that would to have an account strictly for FRO purposes and top it up to only the level needed. Of course, you are right that you then get into the added mess of arrears and I probably would have done as you did.

Has FRO adjusted your husband's support deduction order now?
In our experience FRO was actually prompt with that.

Last spring my partner had a date in April to vary support. It was adjourned to another date at the end of May. However, the CS was adjusted to a low amount for April 1st & May 1st.
At the next court date that wasn't even touched upon. The talks dealt with what would happen from June 1st/08 to June 1st/09.
My point being, I think it's unlikely that your St. sons Mom can start barking about her extreme Disneyland hardship she experienced on account of the temporary order.

[#1StepMom]

Has FRO adjusted your husband's support deduction order now? In our experience FRO was actually prompt with that.

Nope. FRO has not made any adjustments, despite assuring my husband that they did receive the new support order in April and were in the process of adjusting his payments. In June, the previous amount (not the reduced amount) was still withdrawn by FRO. Luckily, we managed to get my stepson's mom to agree to withdraw from FRO, and so we sent in the paperwork earlier this month and put a stop payment on the account.

My point being, I think it's unlikely that your St. sons Mom can start barking about her extreme Disneyland hardship she experienced on account of the temporary order.

Well, believe it or not, she is barking quite loudly about how she's experiencing financial hardship. When we brought up the Disney trip, she claimed it was a gift from her family for them to go. *Roll Eyes*

On top of that, she is now trying to change the order so that my husband is responsible for 50% of all childcare costs with the exception of those incurred during his vacation time with his son, at which time she expects that he cover 100% of the child care costs! And this is after a judge told her that each of them is responsible for their share of the childcare costs regardless of the reason for the costs!

[frustrated11]

wow...I don't think it can be revoked as he had to borrow this money that was withdrawn. Unless the courts ask, you don't have to say that you lent him.