need information

[tomas]

My son-in-law has three children from a previous marriage.  They have joint custody, but he has them more than she does.  He has them during school times and various.  There were times when he had them 100% of the time.  

the custody agreement is lengthy, but says that they will go to school in the town he is currently located in, so he has them while they are attending school because she lives in a neighboring city.  

so therefore he has them 5 days a week, 9 months of the year and then on weekends during the summer.  She doesn't even take them every week of the summer.  She has filed for child support and back child support and shouldn't get it, it would be taking money away from the children and their support while living with the Dad.  child support people say that the parent who makes the least money will get support if the agreement is joint.

If they truly were with her 5o% of the time, he would not object to the support, but he has them 75 to 80% of the time, plus has two other children and is also raising two of my daughters from a previous marriage.

He is a hard worker and is not rich. He works for a cement foundation company.   He can make ends meet now, but may not be able to if he must pay support.

She lies to the support people and gets people to lie for her--My son in law  has documented when she has them and when they have them-- and other things.

1)  Does he have any legal recourse
2)  If so what can we do to help him.  

He is a very good father and this x, just keeps taking him down.

[kiddosmom]

There is so much you can do for your son in law!
Make sure to come to the chat room to speak to others!
We are all going through this in one form or another.

[tomas]

how can we help.  he is ready to give up and just give her the money

[nosonew]

He needs to take it to court and have the wording changed to "father is residential parent" with the following visitation with mother.  As residential parent, he should be getting the cs to support the kids.  

Im sure Brent can let you know some of the sites here (have you gone into the archives?) that are pertinent to this situation.

[Brent]

For a question like this, and how to proceed, I'd sdefinitely uggest asking Socrateaser on the "Dear Socrateaser" message board.

1) He will need to go to court to get the custody officially changed/recognized.

2) He is entitled to child support, and this will also have to be awarded or changed through the court as well.

3) One of the first things you'll hear is "Document, document, document!". Having good records is crucial. Some of these pages will apply more than others, but they all have valuable information. You didn't say if he had an attorney or not, so there are a couple on hiring an attorney in the list:

Tips For Getting Started
http://www.deltabravo.net/news/10-19-2000.htm

How To Hire An Attorney
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/hiring.htm

Hiring An Effective Attorney
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/effective.htm

Success Factors In Obtaining Custody
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/tips.htm

Also, get yourself either the Parenting Time Tracker (PTT) at: http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/tracker.htm or the OPTIMAL Custody Tracking service at: http://www.parentingtime.net. The PTT is free, but the OPTIMAL service is better.

[Indigo Mom]

The first thing he needs to do is modify the original agreement to reflect what's "really" going on.

And also, about the child support.  I could be way off, but I believe there's a way...and if it's true, someone else could tell you....

If he has the children living with him, but she wants "back child support" maybe he can get it so she pays child support NOW....but not really pays it...it comes off any "arrears" this guy "would" owe.  Once his "arrears" are down to zero, the mother would begin paying him each month.

So, if she owed 200 a month, but he owed 5000 in back child support, each month, nothing would be paid by her...just 200 would come off the 5k.

Does that make sense?

[Kitty C.]

Use the time tracker on this site and have him go back as FAR as he possibly can to document how much time the kids have been with him.  He will also need receipts to prove his time with them, school registration receipts, clothing, EC activities, etc.

He needs to file for modification based on a significant change of circumstance (kids are with him more) and gather as MUCH proof of such as possible.  it may not necessarily be a good idea to ask for CS from the BM right now, since SHE is actually the one asking for it.  She just might 'give in' to the custody change if she doesn't have to pay CS.  But that DOES NOT mean you can't ask for it later............;-)

[tomas]

thank you all very much.  We will review what we have received and see what we can do.  I don't usually sign up for these forums but I didn't know where else to turn.