Legal Question in Family Law in Texas
I make $15.50 an hour in Texas and pay $1078 a month in child support for 4 children. Am I paying too much in child support? I have 3 seperate cases my oldest recieves $276 a month, the two middle $480 and the youngest $324. is there a way that i can modify the payments on all of them at once or is it a case by case basis. and would i need an attorney to do this should i have an attorney or can i tackle this by myself. if i have any rights at all.
1 Answer from Attorneys
I wouldn't swear that I did the math right on this, but running your income (assuming $15.50/hour, 40 hours a week) through the usual child support calculations for mukti-household situations, I actually got a total figure of about $200 MORE a month than you're paying now. I don't remember the specifics, except that the youngest and oldest were $380/month, and I think the figure for the middle two came out pretty close to what you said it is now. That's all according to the standard guidelines, of course. There could be valid reasons why you should be paying less a month than those figures (either mine or yours), but usually that would involve a child living with you a good percentage of the time, you paying all or a lot of unusual expenses such as recurring hospital bills, private school tuition, etc. I'd be very careful before you go filing petitions to modify (and yes, you'd have to file in all three separate cases) under these circumstances--you might very well have their attorneys say, "Modify? Well, sure--We'd LOVE to modify! How about another hundred a month?" At the very least, please consult an attorney before you file anything, because I really am concerned this might end up backfiring on you. Good luck.