Child support often can be a contentious and heated issue between parents. Consider consulting an experienced lawyer or attorney like Herb Schultz when trying to establish child support.
In Illinois, there is typically a custodial parent and a parent who has visitation and pays child support. The Child Support Statute can be found at ILCS 5/505.
There are guidelines for child support based on the number of children you have. Child support is calculated from the net income (income after allowed deductions such as taxes).
| 1 | 20% |
| 2 | 28% |
| 3 | 32% |
| 4 | 40% |
| 5 | 45% |
| 6+ | 50% |
The Court can deviate from these guidelines when it considers a guideline amount to be extremely unfair to one party. In situations where a parent who owes child support makes so little money that a guideline award would not leave them enough money to live on, the court may order child support below the guidelines. The same is true of a non-custodial parent who makes so much money that the guideline amount would provide not just support to the child, but a financial windfall to the custodial parent. If the child has special medical needs then the child support may be adjusted above the guidelines.
The parent seeking support must file a petition to begin the clock for child support payments. Support is owed from the filing of the petition on. It is also up to the party seeking to modify child support to file a petition asking the court to do so. Child support does not automatically go up if the other parent makes more money, and does not automatically go down if they lose their job.
Additionally after a Court rules you typically have to wait two years to go back and re-evaluate the child support amount. In such a case, if you have a current child support order and you have lost your job, or been demoted and are now making less money than you were at the time of the order, you can file a new petition to modify based on changed circumstances. In this situation you make a showing to the family court judge that the old support order is unfair in light of the current circumstances, and you can potentially have your child support order decreased temporarily or permanently depending on your specific situation.
For a free consultation to discuss seeking, increasing, or decreasing a child support arrangement, call the law office of Herb Schultz at (309) 788-4539 to set an appointment, or contact us securely through our website. We are a Rock Island, Illinois, based law firm, handling child support cases in Rock Island, Moline, East Moline, the Quad Cities, and Rock Island County, as well as neighboring Illinois counties.
100 19th Street
Ste 103
Rock Island, IL 61201