Negotiating Child Support

[Tayken]

IF you go before the court over it. You CAN always agree to a lower amount if necessary. CS is one of those things that is NOT set in stone and can ALWAYS be reopened. I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a second.

Applying your own logic to the argument. Should the parties in an out of court settlement agree to a lower amount of CS, a judge is well within their rights to order the table amounts and in a retroactive manner. To make a any order below the table amount takes an incredible amount of evidence to support. Case law for which lower amounts than the guideline CS is ordered are incredibly complex cases and the other party would probably have to make a claim for unjust enrichment, etc...

Unless the other party fits the condition of the 1% of times where CS is ordered to a lower amount of table support... I would recommend to hold your ground on the matter... Especially if the other party is unrepresented and there is no lawyer on the other side advising them as to what conditions a lower amount of CS can be ordered on.

Good Luck!
Tayken

 

[OrleansLawyer]

If you are negotiating outside of a court room, you can most definitely agree to a lesser amount of child support.

This is true. If the parties are amicable it is not unheard of for them to make their own arrangements as far as child support goes. The most common case is with equal access, the parties come up with a number instead of using offset guideline support.

However, since Guideline support is an all but certainty at court, doing so is entirely unnecessary. Most family lawyers regard Guideline support as a fact of life rather than an issue to discuss.