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Mom doesn't have kids, wants child support anyway

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  • Mom doesn't have kids, wants child support anyway

    Usually, a parent will claim that child support is needed to, well, actually financially support the child. This mother though was not even bothering with the pretense.

    http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc...7onsc1023.html

    Summary:

    Dad makes $300k
    Mom makes $26k
    Kids live with Dad
    Motion was by Dad to stop paying CS to Mom, with Mom actually opposing.

    The mom's argument was that she needed the money to see the kids. Her obvious real issue was that she was about to lose her massive CS payments.

    I'm not thrilled with the final ruling. The judge didn't say "this is insane". The judge said "The dad has said he won't be able to pay for private school if he has to pay CS, so CS will hurt the kids". In other words, there was nothing inherently wrong with the Dad paying CS to the mom for kids that lived with him.

    Even when a judge gets it right, they can still get it wrong.

  • #2
    Addenum: S7 expenses will not be proportionally split, Dad will pay 100%. Mom also will not be paying CS.

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    • #3
      Chalk another one up to malicious self-entitled mothers, and a law that will continue to cater to women and empower them, until there are serious changes to the way the system works. MGTOW all the way!!!

      Comment


      • #4
        So many things make this a completely grey case, the likes of which must frustrate judges, as there is no good solution.

        It contains the classic problem in any situation where the parents have wildly different incomes. The kids want to be in the home with the most money, which means all the CS goes to that home, and then the other parent has even less money in their home. So then the kids really don't want to be there, etc. in the vicious circle.

        The low income mom's second marriage is breaking down. So that's even less money in her household. No wonder she's desperate for CS even when she doesn't have the kids. Without it, she probably can't even afford a home big enough to accommodate them anymore. No, it's not the responsibility of her first ex to support her because she now has a second ex; I'm just saying this explains where her sudden desperation comes from, and understanding motivation is a big help. Maybe this woman should have figured out how to support herself better by now, retrained for a career she can do despite her disability, invested her equalization, or something other than expecting CS to be SS.

        Then, there is the issue of huge s7 expenses, such as the private school fees in this case, which I believe they have done backwards. Deciding what s7 expenses to take on should be done on the basis of your current financial situation. I don't think it's right of this guy to say let's enroll them in private school, so now they live with me due my house being nearest to the school, so now I don't need to pay CS so I can afford the fees. I think it would have been more appropriate to say the situation is shared access, which involves lots of CS, so private school is not affordable on top of that, and then looked into changing shared access before enrolling them. But that's nothing a judge can do anything about now.

        This is a case that confirms my belief that CS should be on more of a sliding scale. If she gets them EoW, which is about 20% access, she should get 20% of the combined CS between them. A little money would flow from him to her, not enough to make a hardship for him, but enough to make a big difference in her being able to accommodate the kids for her access time, and let her be able to afford her tiny share of s7 expenses. I guess the judge has tried to approximate this by not having her pay CS or s7 at all, but I think it's like trying to right a wrong with another wrong.

        Lastly, the mother definitely has some issues, both with her income earning ability and her parenting ability. But to say that teenagers shouldn't live with her because she doesn't help them enough with breakfast or lunch or homework is a bit silly. They are old enough to be expected to manage that themselves. These children are growing up with an attitude of entitlement which won't be helped by living with dad. It doesn't sound like he's encouraging them to maintain their relationship with her.

        Incidentally, this also opened my eyes to the mistaken impressions lower income people have of higher income people. This guy pays a LOT of tax! We may all look at a $300k income and think 'wow, he can afford anything' but it doesn't give the same proportion of disposable income we have at lower levels.

        ETA - it's not a gendered problem. This situation could just as easily happen to a high-powered woman executive and a disabled ex-husband.

        Comment


        • #5
          I agree that if the kids are living with Dad, he shouldn't be paying CS.

          However, I noted that one of Mom's issues was that without CS, she wouldn't be able to afford the apartment that she moved to in Dad's town in order to continue shared parenting (which the kids refused to do). If she moves back to her original town, EOW won't be workable. I'm wondering if there's some room for Dad to assume the costs of bringing the kids to and from Mom when she moves back to her original town, so she doesn't lose contact with them altogether.

          Also not impressed by the kids - if a 14 and 15 year old's biggest complaint about their mother is that they have to make their own breakfast on school days, I can't feel too sorry. Also not impressed by parents (like Dad here), who just say "well, the kids have voted with their feet". Being a parent sometimes means making kids do things they don't want to do, including seeing their mother.

          So I completely agree that CS should follow the children, but I'm also not impressed by Dad and the kids.

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          • #6
            This case sounds very similar to one of the situations of a poster on here.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Rioe View Post
              ETA - it's not a gendered problem. This situation could just as easily happen to a high-powered woman executive and a disabled ex-husband.
              Disagree. With the genders reversed the court ruling becomes a lot shorter.

              Originally posted by Typical Judge
              Well, mom has the kids so Dad has to pay CS. While Dad claims disability he has not provided adequate documentation showing that he is incapable of doing any job. Therefore, I impute income to him of $30k for child support purposes. I also fix costs at $3000 and order that the costs be enforced as support by FRO

              Comment


              • #8
                this isn't as bad as the the one Canadian judges ruling that whatever expense that mom felt was S7, that it would automatically be so and the father would have to pay his proportionate share.

                the judges and the courts should really stop making up their own laws as they go. Seems to be the best interests of the child principal trumps everything. Whatever the judge feels is in the best interests of the child, then that becomes law, let it be the non-custodial/every other weekend access parent having sole custody, or the sole custodial parent paying all S7 expenses despite the access parent having income.

                Lawyers with that kind of powers (judges) can be real assholes I tell ya. A judge could order you to dance in your street every morning before you had your coffee, if they really wanted to, and felt that it was in the best interests of the child for you to do so. maybe not, but you get the point.

                Comment

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