St. Charles Divorce Lawyer Blog
While it is not mandatory in Missouri that a divorced mother and father contribute to their children’s college expenses, Missouri family courts may order either parent to contribute to the cost of their children’s continuing education. This can be done after a contested trial, or it can become an order of a court through a settlement agreement reached by divorcing parents. In fact, this may be done years prior to the children entering college. In our blog we address how an obligation to pay towards a child’s college expenses may impact a parent’s child support obligation.
As we have addressed in previous blogs, in Missouri the presumed amount of child support a parent must pay to the other parent is determined through the utilization of a Form 14. To determine the amount of support this form relies upon many factors, not the least of which are the income levels of the individual parents, the number of children and the details of the parent’s physical custody schedule. What is not explicitly factored into the calculation is the cost of the child’s college education for which the paying parent may also be responsible.
Should An Obligation to Pay College Expenses Reduce Child Support?
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The Missouri Division of Child Support Enforcement (Division) is a state government agency that is part of the Missouri Department Of Social Services working in conjunction with the Missouri Department of Family Services whose objectives include the establishment and enforcement of child support orders. Despite this clear mission, as defined in our Missouri statutes, many parents and Missouri family law attorneys spend a great deal of time involved in legal wrestling matches over the decisions this agency makes and the manner in which they make them.
In Missouri, child support “abatement” is a process whereby a paying parent’s obligation to pay child support on a monthly basis tolls or stops, even temporarily. This most commonly occurs when the custodial parent voluntarily relinquishes custody of the child to the paying parent for a period in excess of thirty days. It can also commonly occur due to the custodial parent or minor child’s failure to fulfill certain statutory obligations which are required in order to entitle them to continue to receive child support after the child’s completion of high school.
For parents who are either paying or are receiving child support, knowing how long the financial responsibility of child support continues is critical to the financial planning of their family. The answer to the question of how long this obligation continues depends upon multiple factors related to your child.
This is a very common question presented to Missouri family law practitioners. Most parties either paying or receiving child support understand that the amount of money in their court order can be modified or changed by an order of their family court judge. But, in order for a family law practitioner to be able to properly advise his client on whether a child support award can be either raised or lowered, that attorney must have access very specific financial information.
Whether you are going through a divorce, a paternity matter, or a modification of child support, the issue of child support is often one of the principle issues in a Missouri family law case. Determining child support in Missouri can be a challenging task, however it is usually calculated according to a document called the Form 14. By using a Form 14, judges and attorneys alike can determine a child support number based on the parties’ incomes, the number of children they have and other contributing factors.
In Missouri, there are traditionally three ways through which