What To Do If You Think Your Child Support Is Too High
As a non-custodial parent, you probably don't have any problem with the idea of paying child support for your children. You probably understand the importance of taking care of your responsibilities, and you probably want to provide your kids with everything that you can afford to give to them. Child support can become a problem, however, if you are expected to pay an amount that you can't afford. If you feel like your child support payments are killing you, it's time to do something about it. These are the steps that you should take if you think your child support is too high.
Continue Paying for Now
The worst thing that you can do is to stop paying your child support. It can make you look like an irresponsible parent and can leave you in contempt of court, which can even lead to your arrest. Even though it's hard, it is important to do everything that you can to pay your child support for now. However, you should move quickly on the following steps so that you can get some relief as soon as possible.
Hire a Lawyer
Next, you should hire a lawyer to help you with your case. You don't necessarily have to, but a lawyer will know a lot more about how to handle the situation, and he or she can give you guidance about how to get better results in court. Plus, your lawyer can help expedite the process so that you can hopefully have your child support lowered as soon as possible, which is imperative if you are struggling financially because of your payments.
Gather Up Supporting Paperwork
To help prove that you are paying too much in child support, you will need to be able to prove that your existing child support payments are putting you under undue financial stress. This means that you should gather up all of the documents that you can that will help prove that you can't pay this amount of child support. For example, you can bring in your paycheck stubs to show that you aren't making enough money. Bringing in a stack of your bills can also help prove how much you have to pay out each month. Your lawyer can provide you with further guidance about how to prove your situation in court.
You may not be guaranteed that your child support payments will be reduced, but it's worth a try. To help improve your situation, hire a family law attorney like Fleishman Law Office SC or others today to help you.