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our son has been getting hit with a $600.00 a month charge for child support for over 10 years. He has his wages garnished at 50 %. He barely makes $600.00 a month total and he lives at home with us at 41 years old. How can we reduce the payment or offer her a one time payment. He has not seen his child during that time.He will never be able to live on his own at this pace.
Optional Information: State/Country relating to question: California Already Tried: you are the first
1. When was the last time he was in court to address the amount of child support? What happened?
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2. Has his income decreased since the child support amount was established? If so, why?
3. How old is the child?
4. Does he have arrears or is he current?
Thank you.
1) Never been in court. Original case was in Washington state. Our son had moved back to Ca and then was hit with the number.
2) Income has never been what childs mother claimed it was.
3) 16
4) He is $55,000 in arrears. He does not make enough to lower the debt.
1. Is the mother still in Washington? Is she married?
2. Does your son want to be involved or would he agree to ending his rights?
3. Since he's "never been in court", when was the amount established?
4. If you know, has the mother ever received state assistance (medicare, medicaid, food stamps)?
1) Mother is still in Washington, we believe. We cannot contact her and the state will not give out her number. Don't know if she is married
2) Son does not want to be involved and has never been asked to be involved other than the pay check.
3) She ( the mother) went to court and got the financial piece assigned. Our son had no means to go back to Washington to fight it and was told that he needed to go to court in Washington.
4) Do not know if the mother has received assistance or not.
It appears that your son may have a couple of options here.
One option your son might consider is a termination of parental rights (TPR). In a TPR, all of his rights and obligations would be terminated. This would include his right to visitation with the child and his obligation to pay support. As you may have surmised from my questions, his odds of success on a TPR would be best if the mother has married and if she is not receiving any state assistance.
Another option would be to file a request for a reduction in support. As he has never been to court and the mother exaggerated his income, it would certainly seem possible to achieve the reduction. He could file the request with the court, demonstrate his true income and then ask the judge for a reduction.
This can be a rather complicated situation, please let me know if anything requires clarification.
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How do we file this from out of state??
The easiest way would be to hire an attorney that is local to the courthouse. You could locate a few attorneys online that fit your needs and then set up telephone conferences with two or three.
Alternatively, you could contact the clerk of the court, most clerks have template documents that you could use to initiate the process. The clerk may even have the forms online where you could just download the forms, fill them out and then send them in for filing.
Experience: I have over a decade of experience as a Family Law litigator