Legal Question in Family Law in Illinois

This is a difficult situation for your son but not uncommon.

1. Per 750 ILCS 5/505, child support is at a minimum set as a percentage of net income for support of the support payor, in this case your son. For one child, this is 20%, for two, 28% for example.

2. The Court does not care about the reasons for the break down in the marriage when setting child support. This is why I generally dissuade clients from hiring private investigators, et cetera, as it is generally a waste of time and money to find out when they are seeing the paramour, etc. (unless the person is spending marital cash on the paramour, that is a different issue).

3. Without knowing the facts of the case and the entire asset/liability, income and expense picture I cannot tell you whether the overall result is equitable here. I can say that it is not unusual for a support payor to pay a percentage of net income for support (like 28%) and be required to maintain health insurance for the kids, and be required to maintain some life insurance to cover the child support and potential future college expenses, and pay half of uncovered medical expenses as well as half of public school and extracurricular activity expenses as well. I cannot speak to the credit card bills and clothing as I don't have all of the details of the case.

4. The Court really does not care what the payor is left with, or what his remaining bills are - providing for the children is the Court's number one priority. The base support figure is strictly income driven (in most cases, there are some rare exceptions) and the other items are typical for all but the very lowest income support payors.

I sincerely hope this helps.