child support appeal

[rini]

Dear Socrateaser;

My husbands best friend went in for a support modification and is filing a motion for exceptions in PA.

The hearing officer came up with one amount in court and sent out an order with another amount 140 more than what was calculated.
Guidelines show 860 and over 1000 was ordered

kids are 12 and 13 and mother was permitted to locate for a job 3 hours away so new calculation allowed for new job wages and ended alimony.

He is filing this motion pro se because his attorney really has not helped a whole lot so far and he has paid almost 20,000 in legal fees already.

Our state takes into account court orders for other children already in place and he was never given any credit.  350 a month for other support order.  Last child emancipates in June.  so he is still technically paying child support for another couple months.

they also addressed the fact that he contributed toward the mortgage for 2 years and she never used the money for the home and allowed the mortgage to default thus loosing the home.  (the courts should have attributed this to a credit for him also)  .

all of these things were brought up numerous times in hearings and were ignored by the hearing officer.

He also took the kids for over 2 weeks during the ex wifes move and they were supposed to credit the support for these 2 weeks.

Questions

1 because some of these things were addressed already can he address the issues again in his motion for exceptions (first appeal of support order)

There are statutes addressing each topic above except for the money toward the mortgage.

2 Can the support amount be calculated retroactively to first date of calculation because of their refusal to allow credit for the other child support paid even though there is very clear wording and directions as to how to calculate this into a support order in our state guidelines

Thank you and God Bless

rini

[socrateaser]

>1 because some of these things were addressed already can he
>address the issues again in his motion for exceptions (first
>appeal of support order)

Yes, everyone is entitled to a judical review of any finding, conclusion and/or order made in an administrative decision, such is you describe.

>
>There are statutes addressing each topic above except for the
>money toward the mortgage.

That wasn't a question, but I'll read it as one.

Family law court is a court of equity (fairness). It really depends on how the original order was written. If the order was written as support, and the obligee parent failed to use the mone to pay the mortgage, then that is her absolute right, because the support money became hers at the moment it was due and payable each payment period.

If the order was written that $X was to be applied to the mortgage, then the obligor spouse can argue that his payments should have created an equitable interest in the property secured by the mortgage, and the obligee spouse's failure to apply the money to that end should be compensable, on grounds that the payments were made in reliance on the promise to pay the mortgage, and the failure harmed the obligor.

As you can see, this gets way complex, and I would need to read the EXACT text of the order in order to know if you have an legitimate argument on this issue.

>2 Can the support amount be calculated retroactively to first
>date of calculation because of their refusal to allow credit
>for the other child support paid even though there is very
>clear wording and directions as to how to calculate this into
>a support order in our state guidelines

Support can be made retroactive, up OR down, to the date of filing of the motion or order to show cause for modification of support -- before that date, the court is without authority to credit support for the benefit of either party.