Contentious Disputes Over where Child Support Amounts are Being Spent in NJ

Child Support Conflicts Often Occur When Payers and their Exes Disagree About What is Being Used to Cover Their Children’s Needs.

Child support is one of the more contentious items to resolve in a divorce. The amount of support is often disputed as excessive by the payor and insufficient by the payee. Disagreements typically revolve around what support covers. Typically, payor spouses confuse child support payments as payments to the ex-spouse when they are for the children’s needs. Sometimes, a discrepancy is about control over how the custodial parent spends money fulfilling those needs.

Supreme Purpose of NJ Child Support Payments

Child support is for maintaining a child’s basic needs for shelter, food, and clothing, but also for childcare, entertainment, school supplies, and special needs when applicable. That means child support payments legitimately apply to rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and medical costs. It also implies cell phone bills, sports equipment, school uniforms, car payments, car repairs, insurance, snacks, movie tickets, internet, and family co-payments at the doctor are acceptable costs for child support since a child’s home, family, and life outside the home are intertwined and often inseparable. Thus, a parent may use child support for household groceries, not just the child’s food.

How Child Support Guidelines Safeguard Against Deprivation

New Jersey’s Child Support Guidelines determine the amount of child support for each family based primarily on the percentage of shared parenting time and each parent’s income. The support amount covers the child’s needs and places them in the approximate lifestyle they enjoyed when their parents resided in the same household. The underlying goal is to prevent children from suffering deprivation after a divorce.

Defining Custodial Parent’s Authority in Child Support Allocation

The custodial parent, meaning the one with the higher percentage of custodial time, determines how to spend child support money to provide for and support a child’s wellbeing. So long as a parent meets the child’s needs, their spending is not open to question. Therefore, one parent may not dictate how the other parent spends child support, demand proof of payment for expenses, control how or when the other parent gets paid, or challenge individual costs they disagree with when their child benefits from the support.

However, a custody modification may be in order when the custodial parent is not providing for the child by mishandling the funds despite the other parent’s complete and timely payments. With proof that their child does not have food or a safe place to live, the payor parent may want to bring the matter to court for a judge to determine whether the custodial arrangement is in the best interests of the child or children.

A court decides what is in the best interests of a child by examining a child’s needs, safety, stability, home life, and education. Other factors include the cooperation and communication between parents, their job obligations, and their relationship with their child or children. A court may also consider a change’s effect on the child, given their relationship with siblings and their preference when they are old enough to make a reasonable choice.

Requesting a Custody and Support Modification Based on Substantial Change of Circumstances

If they cannot agree with the other parent to change custody, the payor parent must file a motion based on a substantial change of circumstances. To prove a substantial change in circumstances, the moving party must convince a family court judge that the current custodial arrangement is no longer in the child’s best interests because changed circumstances negatively affect the child.

Thus, they must demonstrate that the child did not go hungry or fear for their safety until a specific time or an event occurred to bring on the circumstances. Those changes may have happened when the custodial parent began using support to pay for drugs or expensive vacations they went on with friends or a new spouse rather than paying rent or buying food. Other indicators may be a child’s plummeting grades or growing depression from being deprived of a social life or diversion with games, sports, or other age-appropriate activities.

Though a parent’s spending choices for child support are not a basis for a child custody modification, it may be when those choices negatively affect a child’s physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, and it is in the best interest of the child to live with the other parent. However, the moving party must meet the burden of proof to establish a substantial change in circumstances with evidence that the child is better off leaving their current living arrangement.

A court decides what is in the best interests of a child by examining a child’s needs, safety, stability, home life, and education. Other factors include the cooperation and communication between parents, their job obligations, and their relationship with their child or children. A court may also consider a change’s effect on the child, given their relationship with siblings and their preference when they are old enough to make a reasonable choice.

Skilled Legal Advocacy when Child Support Conflicts Arise

Since there is no specific degree of proof, such as clear and convincing or a preponderance of the evidence, the moving party will need an experienced family law attorney to gauge what is enough evidence to support what a court considers “substantial.” At Bronzino Law Firm our lawyers bring child custody and child support modifications to court regularly, so we know what satisfies a judge’s interpretation of the factual circumstances to determine what is substantial and in the child’s best interests.

An experienced family law attorney at our Ocean County firm can also offer suggestions and solutions for parties disputing child custody based on mismanagement of child support. When the mismanagement is due to ignorance or a lack of skills, we may offer solutions regarding education, training, or assistance to the custodial parent in budgeting money for the household. Our team can broker an agreement between the parties that satisfies both that the children are adequately cared for and child support money appropriately spent.

Contact Our Family Attorneys Regarding How Child Support is Spent in Ocean or Monmouth, NJ

When a compromise is impossible, our family lawyers are crucial to filing a motion with the court, preparing a case for a hearing, and arguing a case before a judge. As legal professionals familiar with court procedures and paperwork, we will file a motion with the court and secure a court hearing date without delay. Parents who file their own motions often face delays due to their ignorance about court filings and procedures. A missing cover sheet or declaration may cause the court clerk to reject their paperwork.

Since courts often carry large caseloads, obtaining a hearing date may take thirty days or more. Our attorneys can save time and money by reducing the chances of a delay. We are also invaluable at assembling the necessary documents, witnesses, and testimony necessary to convince a judge to modify custody. Hire a family law attorney at Bronzino Law Firm when you need help with a child support or child custody dispute in Ocean Township, Red Bank, Howell, Toms River, Freehold, Jackson, Sea Girt, or elsewhere in the Ocean or Monmouth County region. Contact us at (732) 812-3102 for a free and confidential consultation regarding your child support case today.