How to file for child support in hamilton county ohio
How To Modify Child Support From Start to Finish
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[Music]
what's up guys it's shawn from
self-represented school dot com hope
you're all doing great today's video is
going to be about how to lower your
child support going to tell you
everything you need to know about a
child support modification but first
need to let you know that nothing in
this video is going to constitute legal
advice nothing in this video that i'm
going to say is going to be an
invitation to start an attorney-client
relationship everything here is meant
for education and entertainment purposes
only also known as edutainment i really
like that word and now that i've gotten
that stuff out of the way let's jump in
now the vast majority of the time
whenever you're going to talk about
lowering child support this is going to
all be all about a modification while
there are some differences in the
approach if you are in a department of
revenue type case versus a circuit court
case that stems from a divorce or a
custody case for the most part
everything here is going to be the same
anytime you're going to try to modify
child support you're going to have to be
able to show that there's been what's
called a substantial change in
circumstances and i have this
conversation with my clients all the
time
most people say hey look a substantial
change yeah it's been a few years maybe
the kid's a little older but it's got to
be a substantial change based on the
legal definition of a substantial change
which a lot of people don't really get
that it's a lot higher of a burden to
meet than what you and i would think
would be a change so a substantial
change in child support
is a little easier to get to than say a
substantial change if you're trying to
modify a custody arrangement
so the general rule
most of the time is going to be that if
your income or the other party's income
has gone up or down
by 15
plus or minus and that it would result
in the child support payment going up or
down by at least 50 bucks
then usually that's going to meet that
threshold of a substantial change in
circumstances so you'll be able to get
in the door for a modification now if
you don't if your petition that you file
does not allege
on paper that a proper substantial
change has occurred then the other side
can file a motion to dismiss and it's
not a good thing so you always want to
make sure
that your petitions say hey a
substantial change has occurred it's
going to change the
support number by a substantial amount
you want to have those words or
something very similar to that in your
petition so that the other side isn't
going to have an easy time filing a
motion to dismiss now in most states
the are the
state supreme court will have a website
that provides a lot of self help or
self-represented family law forms that's
just kind of like fill in the blank so
if your state has that
then i highly recommend that you take
advantage of that because those forms
are going to have
all the necessary
allegations that you have to make
they're going to may have all of the
language that needs to be included there
and all you have to do is fill in the
blanks to the best of your ability and
generally
those are going to have you in a good
position now when it comes to child
support modification there's going to be
a handful of really common reasons why
you're
saying that there's been a substantial
change right so maybe you got laid off
from work right maybe you were
injured and you can't work
maybe the other party got a raise or
they started working and they started
making a lot more money so those are all
the more common ones but there's several
that can be argued that a lot of people
don't even think about and that is
hey
maybe the daycare care cost dropped off
maybe when we got our child support
ordered the first time there was a bunch
of daycare that the child needed and now
the child's in school and that's no
longer necessary so that would change
the child's port amount by 50 or more
maybe the other side is not exercising
all of their overnight time sharing if
there's any sort of parenting agreement
in place most states will allow you to
modify your child support and the
parenting agreement to take away any
overnights that the other side isn't
exercising as long as it goes on for a
while usually six to eight months is the
minimum that you want to see that before
you try to seek a modification now some
things that you may wish were a
substantial change that actually aren't
are going to include if you quit or got
fired from your job so any loss of
income or any loss of employment that is
something that technically is your fault
or you voluntarily caused
is not going to open the door for a
substantial change a couple more are if
the other party inherits a bunch of
money that's not going to be a
substantial change or if the other party
gets married and the new spouse makes a
lot of money that by itself is not
automatically going to have new husband
or new wife's
income get added to the pot for child
support it's only in the rare situation
where if they get married
and they quit their job and now they're
living off new spouses income and new
spouses paying all their bills now that
opens the door to examining new spouse's
income but only to the extent that it is
reducing your other party's cost of
living which it's a difficult situation
it's hard to prove but with the right
discovery and the right approaches
can be done but it's not an ideal
situation so with the modification once
you've determined that you've got a
substantial change and you have the
desire and believe that you can
change and lower your child support
obligation you're going to have to find
the right forms and as i said a minute
ago most states have a website that's
funded by the state it's kept by the
state and it provides a lot of these
self-help self-represented family law
forms so you want to find a supplemental
petition for modification
or a petition for modification um and
you're just
mainly going to fill in the blanks now
most states are going to have
instructions that come along with that
you want to read those carefully because
there's going to be other forms that you
have to fill out and submit along with
that petition
for sure there's going to be a financial
statement or a financial affidavit
that's going to have to go along with
that in some cases you're going to have
to do a notice of social security number
a ucc jea affidavit
that's just a form that shows
where the child has resided just to make
sure the jurisdiction is still proper in
your location
and there may other be other forms that
are necessary in your jurisdiction also
a summons a summons is going to have to
be filled out because this is a petition
you are filing a reopening of your old
case so the other party has to be served
by a process server so you know usually
you're going to use the sheriffs for
that
but in my experience the sheriffs
they they do their best they work hard
but they're not perfect and they've got
a lot of
summonses that they are going to serve
i find it better just to kick in the
extra 50 bucks and go to a private
process server
you're usually going to get faster
better results in getting the other
party served and you can just go on
google and search for process server in
your zip code and you're going to get a
hundred or a thousand hits
depending on where you are
should be plenty to find a good server
also don't forget whenever you file a
petition with the court there is going
to be a filing fee the good news is when
you're filing a modification the filing
fee is generally a whole lot cheaper
than when you filed your first case if
you were the one who filed that case so
usually you want to plan on a filing fee
somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 or
so
some states are a little higher
but my understanding is that 50 for that
filing fee is kind of the going average
okay once you get the other party served
now
the game is afoot right the case is
active they have 20 days to file an
answer and
without fail in every modification of
child support case there is going to be
the need for financial discovery okay
a lot of people hate that word they
think it's a pain in the butt but it's
super important especially if you're the
one seeking the modification you have to
prove
that
that you've got that reduction in income
and the only way to do that is to turn
over the right financial documents
so first and foremost it's always going
to be a financial affidavit without fail
heck in many states if you file a
modification petition without a
financial affidavit
that by itself is a basis for your
petition to get dismissed so you want to
always make sure that when you're
completing your petition for
modification you're also filling out a
financial affidavit and you're filing
them both at the same time just to be on
the safe side hands down necessary and
100 of modification cases in my
experience all right there's also
usually going to be
several other items you're going to have
to turn over
to the other side
in many cases okay
tax returns
pay stubs for a certain number of months
maybe your your bank your checking
account savings account statements for a
certain number of months
items like that
now if you're in department of revenue
if you're in a case where department of
revenue is on the other side a lot of
times you can kind of get away without
that stuff and you can just fly by the
seat of your pants with a financial
affidavit
but
i
am going to still
i am of the opinion that even in
department of revenue cases you want to
do as as in-depth discovery as you can
and here's why
because
usually with the department of revenue
they are going to
believe everything that that the
petitioner says right so if you're the
one paying child support then you're
you're the respondent generally in a
department of revenue case and they're
going to believe everything that the
petitioner tells them right oh you know
i'm unemployed i have zero income oh you
know i pay a thousand dollars a month in
daycare costs um oh i pay 500 a month
for the child's health insurance they're
very rarely going to make the other
party
prove that if the other party is a
petitioner the one who's getting the
support
they're very rarely going to ask that
parent for documents to back that up
they're just going to believe it they're
just going to believe that that's what
the other parent's paying
and all of those things go into child
support calculations and all of those
things can jack your number way up way
higher than it needs to be but the the
rate of parents actually lying
about the child even being in daycare or
having health insurance it's insane
i cannot tell you how often
um a parent and it's most
mostly it's the moms okay but i'm not
discriminating here we represent moms
too in my firm
but
you know i can't tell you how many times
moms will tell the department of revenue
yeah i pay a thousand dollars a month in
daycare and um in it and it
doubles dad's child support and then dad
comes to find out after the fact that
the child is never in daycare
so you you really have to do
some discovery to
to hold the other party
accountable for everything that they're
saying because the department of revenue
is not going to do that
you know the other if if you're in a
circuit court case like from a divorce
or a custody case the judge isn't going
to you know from the bench hold them to
what they're saying that's your job
that's their as the respondent as the
payer of the child support and if they
have an attorney the attorneys darn sure
not going to hold them accountable the
attorney's doing their best to get them
everything that they ask for even if
that completely screws you over
so so the most important thing to do is
and what i what what i believe is a
smart thing to do
in any modification case is uh you know
just file a request to produce
that is a discovery demand where you are
basically saying hey look other parent
you know by me filing this document
you're going to have 30 days to provide
me with copies of all of the documents
on this list okay and
you know in in this list can include
hey uh updated financial affidavit um
your last you know 12 months of personal
and uh bank and checking account
statements your last 12 months of pay
stubs um
you know
i like to get a little creative on these
i think you're absolutely okay to say
if you if you claim to have lost a job
within the last 12 months provide a copy
of the separation letter or your
resignation or the termination letter or
the name of your
the name of your last supervisor so that
you know we can contact them and verify
why you lost that employment
right you can say hey if you're claiming
that the child's in child care provide
the last 12 months of proof that you
made the payments to the child care
provider that is huge because in dor
court that is the number one thing that
i see parents lie about is child care
costs and by filing that simple request
alone
i have
made so many parents look like liars and
made the judges and child support
hearing officers not believe anything
else that comes out of their mouth
because they they just weren't honest
about the child care and it's a tiny
step it doesn't take that much time but
it can yield a tremendous result so you
really want to be looking
at serving the other party with the
right discovery requests and even if
you're the one who's claiming that you
lost the job or you lost the income
don't forget you know it may have been a
year six months or two years or five
years since your last child support
order that other parents probably making
more money than they were before
and they i'm going to tell you you
cannot just trust a financial affidavit
because you know you may not want to
believe it but people lie on financial
affidavits they're not supposed to
right now when you fill it out you got
to be very very cautious because when
you fill out a financial affidavit and
you sign it and you have it notarized
that is the same thing as you being in
court raising your right hand and saying
i swear
you know to tell the truth the whole
truth and nothing but
same thing just like you're talking to a
judge giving testimony that's what that
written financial statement that
financial affidavit is and if you're
caught lying on it
the judge treats that most of the time
as if you just looked them in the face
and lied to them and so you can't do
that you got to make sure that
everything on that financial affidavit
is true you've done the math you've
checked of the math twice you've made
sure there are no mistakes and if
anyone's financial affidavit is going to
be jacked up it's going to be the other
parties so now you can show
that there
that they have no problem lying to the
court and then the court's going to have
no problem not believing anything that
comes out of their mouth which is going
to help you
100 percent of the time may not win the
case but it's not going to hurt anything
i
i can tell you based on my experience it
happens all the time when you file those
discovery demands they're generally
going to have 30 days to get you all of
those documents what happens if they
don't get them to you in 30 days if
you're gonna if you're calling them out
on some lie that they've told
you can bet they're not going to turn
the stuff over on time so after the
after the time period expires you go
right back to your state website that
provides those
those
forms and you find one called a motion
to compel or in your state it might be
something a little different but a
motion to
basically enforce discovery deadlines
okay and you file that and basically
what that says is hey judge
this person got served with a discovery
date discovery demand on this date they
didn't turn it over on time it's now
late um we need the court involved to
enter an order compelling them to turn
over the documents and
then you get that scheduled for a
hearing and the court will absolutely
compel them and but here's a great thing
is if they don't turn over the documents
after being compelled
then you can file a motion for contempt
right and in your motion for contempt in
most states
one of the the things that the judge can
do
against them for not following the
discovery deadlines is they can strike
their pleadings and if they're the you
know if they're the petitioner or they
filed an answer
that basically means that
it becomes a default based case
and that can be really helpful
in tremendous ways as you're moving
forward
you know for your modification
now if your case is a circuit court case
that means if it came from a divorce or
a child custody case it's not really
like a state department of revenue case
then most of the time you're going to
have to go to mediation
in order to you know sit down with a
mediator and try to settle the issue of
child support no child support is really
you know it's a mathematical equation
and so
i you know people settle custody
disputes and mediation people and
divorces settle a lot of property
disputes and alimony cases in mediation
but when you're talking about child
support
you know it's a number if the other side
is not agreeable to what that number
turns out to be
then mediation is is a waste of time now
you know we give it we give it a good
try but when i go when i take a case to
mediation i've already sent the other
side my proposed numbers before we even
schedule mediation and so if i'm going
to mediation in a child support
modification case then that means i've
already presented numbers to them and
they've just flat out denied it so i
already kind of know that mediation is
going to be a waste of time
but but still give it a try but if you
can
you know you should always be trying to
resolve these cases on an uncontested
basis whenever you possibly can so what
that means is
if you're on talking terms with the
other side or if they have a lawyer you
can and should absolutely you know
find a good online child support
calculator you might even i use family
law software now it costs money um but
there's no there's no issue with you
know schedule signing up for a paid
subscription to a good child support
software maybe just for a month or two
just to you know while your case is
going on you know run some child support
numbers send them over to the other side
say hey look um i'd like to resolve this
case here's my proposed numbers um if
even if they say no you've run the
numbers and you you kind of know what
you're what you're looking at so no
numbers at mediation or at trial are
going to blindside you and surprise you
and i mean if you can resolve the case
by agreement
that's
better in about 99 of cases so long as
the agreement is something that's fair
right you don't want to you know you
don't want to fall into that trap where
you want to settle the case by agreement
so bad
that you agree to anything even though
it puts you over a barrel it's got to be
something that's fair so now if the case
is something that's required to go to
mediation and there's no settlement at
mediation then afterwards you file your
notice for trial you get a hearing date
and you go in and you have your hearing
on child support and
now if you're in a department of revenue
case obviously you didn't go to
mediation they don't require that at
least in any of the dor jurisdictions
that i've worked in
and you would go straight from your
discovery process to a hearing
now
i to go into the nuts and bolts of the
actual trial or hearing to establish the
modification is something that goes far
beyond what this video is for
but i can tell you that when you're
getting ready for your hearing
you're going to want your financial
affidavit you're going to want
all of the discovery that you received
from the other party and you're going to
want your child support guidelines that
you ran
you're going to want proof of your
reduction of income
right if you're if that's a basis that
you're claiming the modification for or
if you're requesting the modification
because the other party's making more
money you're going to want to make
absolutely certain that you have the
proof that you received from them in the
discovery phase of the case
to present to the judge and you're going
to have all of these kind of marked as
exhibits every jurisdiction is different
but there's usually an online
in forum or i'm sorry an online resource
in most jurisdictions that's going to
let you know what your judge's
preferences are
worst case you could call their judicial
assistant their phone numbers are online
you can find them
pretty easily reach out to the judicial
assistant either by phone or email and
just say hey look i want to just
checking on the court's preferences for
marking exhibits you know a lot of times
they'll email you the the tags
that you can print out and use to
pre-mark your exhibits
it's not anything that's crazy
now we are putting together
courses on how to do all this stuff at
self-represented school.com
so if you get a chance check that out
we're developing our first course now
and we're going to be developing
multiple courses after that
on a wide array of family law issues
super the plan is to make them super in
depth super helpful and super affordable
because i mean let's face it you don't
have time to be listening to a bunch of
technical jargon you just want to know
hey what do i need to know to do what i
need to do so i can get this done and
move on with my life and not have to pay
a ton of money for it
that's that's our goal here really is to
provide some really good information so
a lot of help to people who need it
who maybe
you know it's just not in their
situation to run out and and pay a big
retainer to an attorney
so anyway that's that's it for this
video if uh if you like this content if
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will see you guys in the next one
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