Legal Question in Family Law in California
If I am working as a contractor that has an end date of May 2012. How can the court determine child support, if i am not going to be employed after May 2012?
4 Answers from Attorneys
The court will determine child support based upon the current factors and when those facters change you will need to return to court to seek a modification.
A better plan would be to continue the support hearing to a date in May in order for the court to recalculate your support if you have no job or are employed less than in your current job.
The court will generally use the current circumstances to calculate support. When the circumstances change the court will adjust the support. Generally, contractors are people who work for a certain period of time and then get regularly laid off. So they will immediately go to unemployment and start receiving it as soon as possible. The court can use your unemployment wage in combination with your wages earned to determine the amount of support you may owe. The court can also "impute" income to people who are considered to be unemployed or under-employed.