Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

maintenance & support

I had a judges ruling in my divorce case, here it is.

1625.00 mo. child support

1600.00 mo. maintenance

unallocated. That's 3225.00 per mo. for 10 yrs. and my daughter is 13 yrs. old. After consulting a CPA my net would be 1500.00 per mo. My marriage was 11 yrs at the time of filing for divorce. My wife has sole custody and I have overnight visitation on all my days off from work and vacation.It's estimated I will be paying 69% of my salary. I think its impossible

to live on 1500.00 net.Can maintenance exceed child support? Is this decision an abuse of the courts discretion or goes against manifest weight or both? I would be paying child support until she's 23. Please respond.


Asked on 12/21/08, 4:14 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Lesley Hoenig Lesley A. Hoenig, Attorney at Law

Re: maintenance & support

Child support is not typically paid until your child is 23, it is until your child turns 18 or graduates high school, whichever is later. If there is $1625 specified as child support, you SHOULD be able to terminate that payment once your daughter graduates high school. If this is a recent ruling, you should consult your attorney about possibly appealing this ruling. I am not sure why you would need to consult a cpa about your net income unless you are self employed. If that is the case, then it sounds to me that possibly, when your income was discussed in your case that it wasn't accurately reviewed. Child support for one child should be 20%of your net income (gross minus taxes and insurance). Maintenance doesn't have a straight forward formula, and without knowing why maintenance is so high, I do not know what your chances of appealing it is. You need to consult a local family law attorney about this.

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Answered on 12/23/08, 3:41 am


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