Q: How can I change a child support order without an attorney?
I am in OK. My ex is in GA (where our divorce was, but he's in a different county). My oldest son went to live with him and I kept my youngest so we had new papers drawn up. The support order was calculated on both of our incomes of course but as mine was lower, the order only shows that he has to pay support for the younger son. When my oldest reached 18 it was never recalculated to take my portion out. I fired my attorney for mishandling my case so I don't want to use him again just to get this fixed and can't afford a retainer for a new one since this guy took all my savings. Any advice would be appreciated!
A: The best advice is always going to be: "Use an attorney." I'm not sure how the attorney was at fault in your question. If the child support order had been signed, the case was, in effect, over. The attorney would not do anything else once the case was over. If you are stating that the signed support order did not include a provision to decrease the amount of support upon the child turning 18, note that the 18 year old also must be out of high school in order to remove the support obligation for the 18 year old. If it was appropriate to decrease support for the 18 year old, you would still not know how much child support would have been following the decrease. Accordingly, you will have needed to revisit the support amount issue after the 18 year old "aged out" anyway. Determining the new amount would require new calculations and a new order. So, you still would have to return to court because the law won't allow the future decreased support amount to be "pre"-calculated; as it would be impossible to know what the parties would be earning in the future. Child support is based upon the parties current income at the time of reference. Finally, there is no way to explain here what you will need to do in your current situation. You either know what you are doing, or you don't.
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