Legal Question in Family Law in Utah
Joint Custody, Child Support, ORS, Parenting Plan
We are working towards a divorce settlement involving joint custody and a detailed parenting plan, which includes dividing financial support for our child into areas of responsbility (rather than the traditional way of calculating child support). We are each going to be responsible for specific things related to the support of our child. Currently, we both have very little income. I (father) as assuming a greater part of the financial support responsibilities per our plan.
Given our plan, can either of us arbitrarily choose at a later time to go directly to ORS and have the whole arrangement changed / financial responsibility re-calculated? That is, would ORS automatically do what they normally are tasked to do despite the terms of our settlement if they received a request from one of the parties?
My reason for asking is to simply be informed. I am not critical of the ''traditional'' guidelines from the state. I simply believe that our arrangement will enhance cooperation and reduce the likelihood of money or other issues causing contention, being used to manipulate, etc. I am dedicated to a successful co-parenting process and keeping the focus on our child.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Joint Custody, Child Support, ORS, Parenting Plan
The only thing ORS can do is enforce collection of the child support order contained in the Decree of Divorce. If your decree lacks any specific requirement that a set sum is to be paid every month, then there's nothing for them to collect. However, if your soon to be ex-wife asks ORS to do an administrative review of the child support, they may be able to do so and set an amount to be paid. At that point, you would need to get an attorney and get the matter back into the court, joining ORS in the case, with a directive that the support provisions of the stipulated decree should control.
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