Child Support Modification

[roam_mt]

Dear Soc,
I will give you a very quick background on my situation and then I have a  quick question for you. My husband and I were fighting for custody of SS in Washington State. Ex decided not worth fighting for (her words) and gave us custody in June 2003. Based on her income she was to pay us $320/mo child support. We agreed to allow her to pay $150/mo as she threatened to continue court case if we did not. Since that time she has gone from working part time to full time and has had at least a $3/hr pay raise. Also SS will be turning 12 in June (Washington state child support is in 2 categories 0-11 and 12-18). Basically $150 is not enough to help with all of expenses for SS.

Ok, now for the questions:

1) Is the change in hours and pay enough grounds for modification of Child support (considering she is already paying less than 1/2 what she should be anyway)?

Thank you so much for your time and your help.

[socrateaser]

>1) Is the change in hours and pay enough grounds for
>modification of Child support (considering she is already
>paying less than 1/2 what she should be anyway)?

You must show a material change in circumstances affecting the child's best interests. Ordinarily, the paying parent's income changing by more than 5% would qualify, but you waived support at $320 knowing that the obligor should/could pay more, based on the guideline, so a change in income is no longer a material change.

If you can show that your cost of providing for the child has increased substantially, that would be a material change, so gather your receipts.

Actually, courts are so bent upon allowing support mods, that there's almost no instance where you can't get a mod, so I would just file for one and go through the motions. If the obligor parent objects, then you can respond to the objection.