Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia
Working Mother
My ex has custody of our kids ages 10 & 12 the day we went to court to set child support she quit her job. Since then I have changed jobs and taken a cut in pay, what I need to know is when they base the support for me to pay does she not have to work and therefore 100% falls on me or in Culpeper do they take into account that she is capable of working at least 40 hours? The judge based it on me only. She is remarried and she also gets to claim the kids on taxes.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Working Mother
The judge has the discretion to determine whether
under the circumstances particular to any one case whether it's reasonable to expect that the custodial parent have gainful employment to defray his or her share of the total parental obligation which is calculated under the income shares formula utilized in the Virginia Child Support Guidelines.
Obviously, in your case out in Culpeper, the judge determined that with children still fairly young, it was not unreasonable for the mother to stay at home to care for these children and to forego gainful employment and the income which that would have produced to lessen the child support burden on you.
Re: Working Mother
If your ex-wife is voluntarily underemployed, meaning she's not working because she doesn't want to, the court can impute income to her, or hold her to the level of income she had before she lost her job.
You should seek the advice and representation of an attorney because it's a very technical argument.
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