Can we get support changed?

[usayow]

It's been a long time since I've posted here.  Anyways, we pay support for my ss which is fine.  We live in Indiana.  I've been keeping track this last year and we have him more than the cp.  On her weekends he stays with friends or relatives.  I am a stay at home mom with my older son and our 2 smaller ones.  THey have joint legal but she has primary physical.  We are supposed get him eow and 1 day a week and 4 weeks in the summer.  Well we have him a lot more.  Is their a way we can get child support changed to reflect this with out having to get an attorney?  We do not even get it reduced when we have him longer than 7 consecutive days it remains the same.  Anyways I noticed the laws changed after the order was put into effect that now they go by how long he stays with both parents not just the one and can we count the days he stays with others as being with neither parent?  Thanks for any help on this matter.

Dawn

[ocean]

You would probably have to get the visitation agreement changed to reflect the time you have him. The BM can turn around and pull the extra time you are getting him so you need to pick your battles. I am not in your state so I do not know if you can get credit for the summer now but if your order has not been changed in a while, watch out because the order could go up.....

[oklahoma]

Our state laws changed as well a few years back, but it stated specifically that you could not request a modification just because the law changed--there had to be a change in court-ordered parenting time.  There had to be documentation of that change.

In our situation, BM got an order to stop visitation (long story...) in 2002.  The CS law changed in 2003 to include parenting time in the calculation.  In 2004, my husband and BM signed an agreement re-establishing parenting time exactly as it was before 2002 (EOW, 4 weeks in summer, alternating holidays.)  We filed for a modification, and CS dropped almost $200/month--for two children. (It actually should have gone even lower, but for some reason CS officer didn't include about 20 overnights/year that were included in the new agreement.  We didn't want to push it though.)  Kind of ironic that CS would have stayed the same if BM hadn't pulled all her garbage.

Still not sure why, but BM didn't respond at all to any of this.  The modification was all done through the mail, with no attorneys.  Since the agreement re-establishing parenting time was never filed in court (BM was supposed to, but didn't), I'm not sure whether or not it would have been upheld in a hearing.

Yours is a tough situation though because you definitely don't want to rock the boat and end up losing time with your SS.  And if Indiana is the same as our state, you would need a new court order--either a stipulated agreement signed by both parties, or an order set forth by a judge. It's not enough just to say you have SS more than the parenting plan says.  Good luck....