Many people in the Bay Area have to pay child support, and are usually perfectly glad to do so. After all, the child support a parent pays is supposed to be for the benefit of a parent’s beloved children for whom they want to provide.
However, even the most well-intentioned parents may from time to time find themselves in situations where they simply cannot afford to pay the child support that they are ordered to pay. When this happens, parents can ask for a support modification in order to get their child support reset to an amount they can afford.
A parent can ask for a child support modification if he or she can prove to the court that there has been a “change in circumstances” which warrant an adjustment to one’s child support. A change of circumstances can be any number of things, such as a job loss or other change in a parent’s income.
However, a California parent can show that there has been a change of circumstance even if both parents’ income has remained basically the same. For instance, if a parent has started to visit with his or her child more often and have them overnight in the parent’s home, he or she may be entitled to and even need a lower amount of child support in order to better care for the child when the child is visiting the parent.
Getting a child support modification is not always a cut-and-dried matter. Even if a person has a good reason to ask for a modification, for instance, the other parent might object and try to fight a change in support. In these sorts of cases, the assistance of a family law attorney may prove invaluable.
