
Understanding Child Support Laws with Jonathan Breeden
Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] So, what I always advise is that if you have an agreement on the child support, don’t put it in the separation agreement, put it into a child support consent order. Child support inherently is going to change through the life of the child.
A separation agreement is a stagnant contract that is fully binding and is held to the four corners of the document on the date it’s signed. The children may be minors for another 15, 16 years and everybody’s financial situations, their needs are going to change.
And if you’ve got it in a separation agreement, a court very well may depending on how it’s worded hold you to that amount when a actual child support amount through a court order could be two or three times that amount within 5, 6, 7, 8 years. Which is why it is not good to put child support in a separation agreement.
Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. [00:01:00] Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.
Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And Today we’re going to have a special edition episode of The Best of Johnston County podcast that we’re calling, Ask Jonathan Breeden anything. Our normal podcast or the majority of our podcasts is where I, Jonathan Breeden interview interesting guests from in and around Johnston County, from community leaders, to small business owners to talk about why they love Johnston County and what they do for Johnston County. And on these special edition episodes, which we call Ask Jonathan Breeden Anything, our social media coordinator, Raena Burch, is going to ask me some [00:02:00] family law questions.
And that’s what I do here at my legal office here at 4042 is family law. So today, I think we’re going to talk about child support. I do not know what the questions are. I do hope I do know the answer but hopefully you will find this entertaining and enjoyable. So here we go. Go ahead, Raena.
Raena Burch: Well, I mean, You’ve been batting a thousand so far with all these questions.
Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right, sounds good.
Raena Burch: All right. First question, how is child support calculated?
Jonathan Breeden: Child support is calculated in North Carolina based on the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines. The North Carolina child support guidelines are drafted and updated every 3 years by the Conference of District Court Judges. Which is a group of judges assigned from around the state to get together. And What they basically do my understanding, Raena is they study a lot of actuarial tables as to what it costs to figure out what a [00:03:00] proper child support amount should be.
And they look at inflation, they look at the cost of housing, they look at food, and they look at all of the different sort of inputs it takes to raise a child in North Carolina and how those have changed up or down in the three years since they previously looked at it. I believe that they hire experts to come in and help them with these numbers.
And then as a result, they end up deciding to raise one child in North Carolina, it is approximately X amount of money. Now, the amount of child support that is owed goes up and down based on the combined income of the parties. So a child of a doctor who makes $150,000 a year, has a lifestyle expectation that would be different than the child of [00:04:00] a, say a a teacher who makes $50,000 a year.
And so the amount of child support that a doctor would have to pay is going to be higher than the amount of child support that a teacher would have to pay. But all of this is done through these, basically one gigantic actuarial table. It’s in the statute if you want to Google it. That they make that the legislature adopts and it just lays out basically for one kid at one at a combined income of the parents of one number it is X.
So let’s say that the combined income of the parents is $150,000 and let’s say the dad makes $100,000 and the mom makes $50,000. That. Again, goes to the chart and you look at two kids, a combined $150,000 and the basic child support obligation, I’m just guessing is going to be around $2,000. And now that needs to be [00:05:00] divided between mom and dad.
And then after you get the basic number. They then add in daycare, private school, health insurance, extraordinary expenses things that most kids don’t have, to add to that base amount child support number that ultimately gets divided as a percentage of the parent’s combined incomes and the percentage of the number of overnights in a year that the parents have.
So that is somewhat of a long winded answer of how is child support calculated, but basically you take these actuarial tables, you plug them into a formula. You can do it on the NCChildSupport.com website and it gives you an approximate amount of what the child support should be.
Raena Burch: Yeah, and there’s different worksheets for different types. So, if you’ve got sole custody or most, you know, or if you have 50 50. Right,
Jonathan Breeden: Right, there are three different types of worksheets. There’s worksheet A when one parent has the children the majority of the time. And the [00:06:00] non-custodial parent does not have 124 nights in a year. That is considered sort of a sole custody, primary custody arrangement. If each parent has more than 124 nights in a year, it is schedule B, which is a shared custody worksheet. And then schedule C is if one parent has one child primarily. And the other parent has another child primarily. So it’s called a split custody worksheet.
Raena Burch: Okay.
Jonathan Breeden: And
All of these worksheets, and I don’t understand the math on the back of them.
I am not a math person, which is why I went to law school, but they basically are running certain formulas ontothis actuarial table to determine who owes what in child support.
Raena Burch: Got it, okay. What happens if you don’t pay your child support?
Jonathan Breeden: Well, it depends. If you have a child support order, which means it has gone to court and it’s signed by a judge. The vast majority of the people listening to this podcast [00:07:00] probably do not have a child support order signed by a judge.
They, Most people go to the child support worksheet online and they sort of figure it out themselves. They come to a verbal agreement and they just agree that you’re going to pay me $500 a month and that’s how they go with it. But and if you don’t do that and you violate the verbal agreement, then the party that should be getting the child support has the right to hire an Attorney like the Breeden Law Office or go to child support enforcement and go to court and get a child support order signed by a judge.
If you have a child support order signed by a judge, which means it’s an order of the court and you don’t pay your child support, you can be found in contempt of court. And so what happens is either the child support agency or an Attorney like the Breeden Law Office, Jonathan Breeden, or one of the associates here, will file what is called a motion to show cause against you, where they’re asking the court for you to show cause.
Why you should not be held in contempt of court [00:08:00] for willfully violating a court order by not paying your child support. and If the court then holds a hearing and you have the right to be there, and if you can’t afford an Attorney, the court will appoint you an Attorney. You end up having a hearing with a judge, and if the judge finds that you willfully failed to pay your child support. They are more than likely going to place you in jail until you pay some amount of money called a purge, where you can purge yourself for being in contempt to get out of jail.
So it can be a very bad outcome. Also, if you have a child support order signed by a judge, you can have your wages garnished. You can have your tax returns garnished, any tax refunds you may get. You may lose some of your professional licenses and they can take your passport. So, it’s there are a lot of things that can be done other than you just not being well losing your freedom. But also I mean, there’s a lot of things if you [00:09:00] don’t pay your child support. And the other thing people forget is your kids age out and maybe I don’t owe you $500 a month anymore currently. But if I have $20,000 in arrears, I still have to keep paying until the arrears are paid.
So, like, it doesn’t stop when they turn 18 if you didn’t pay your child support as they were coming along as you should have.
Okay.
Raena Burch: How often is child support reviewed? Like you said, the board gets together every three years, but like each individual family. Like, how often is that reviewed? When do they review it?
Jonathan Breeden: A child support order, once again, we’re talking about a child support order signed by a judge, not your verbal agreement that most people have. A child support order signed by a judge is reviewable at any time based on a motion of either party, either the payor or the payee. If they can show or believe they can show that the amount owed would go up or down more than 15%.
percent not one [00:10:00] side’s gross income, not the other side’s gross income. But the actual amount once you’ve gone through this entire actuarial table and put all the numbers in. Would go up or down more than 15% then the court can enter a new order. Often you’ll see this when somebody gets laid off and they are temporarily receiving unemployment, they can go and get a temporary reduction because they only have their unemployment income.
And of course, if you go from a full time employment to unemployment, which I think is a maximum of like $330 a week, that’s going to cause the amount owed to go down more than 15% and you can get a new child support order that for six months or so until you can get another job and then they can refigure it based on your new income.
If your order is more than three years old, then you do not have to show that the amount owed would go up or down more than 15% You can just file for a standard three year or more than three year review [00:11:00] and that’s because the actuarial tables that we talked about earlier are reconfigured every three years. So, even if you’re making the exact same amount of money and the health insurance cost is the exact same. Which it won’t be, your child support could go up because those actuarial tables, because of inflation and they went up substantially in this last time and we were looking at 8, 9, 10% inflation since the previous ones.
Raena Burch: Yeah.
Jonathan Breeden: Your child support could go up, even if the numbers stayed the same or even if you started making a little bit less. Because it costs more and more money every year to raise children. You know that, I know that, everybody listening knows that, you know what I’m saying? So that’s a part of it too.
Raena Burch: Okay.
Jonathan Breeden: But you have to file a motion, you have to go to court and get a new court order.
Raena Burch: Yes.
Jonathan Breeden: To get your court ordered child support changed. If you want to change your verbal agreement, you call the other side and see if they’ll just agree.
Raena Burch: Gotcha Well, and good to know about the 15% because I know a lot of people that I know personally think it’s 15% difference in income, not 15% difference in [00:12:00] child support. right? And that’s a big difference right?
That is a big income versus you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars versus,
Jonathan Breeden: right,
Raena Burch: a couple thousand dollars or you know, however much a couple hundred dollars, right?
Right. 50% of each is different huge different.
Right. Well,
Jonathan Breeden: And the biggest thing we see a lot of times here is, the spouse often the wife either has not been working and is coming into the workforce. When we initially do a child support order. And then, six months a year into the separation, into the divorce, they’re now in the workforce full time.
Maybe they’ve gotten a job back in their field and they’re making substantially more money than they were earning the first time. But that doesn’t mean, particularly if it’s Schedule A and they’ve got primary custody and that non custodial parent doesn’t have 124 nights a year, just because the wife’s income went from $15,000 maybe part time to $35,000 full time.
It does not mean that there’s going to be a 15% change In what is owed? Because their income went up. [00:13:00] So, that’s the most common one that people are surprised by is when the person receiving the child supports income does go up It can go up quite substantially, but it doesn’t actually make a 15% change.
Now, if you only have a temporary child support order, it’s modifiable at any point by a motion. So you got to, If it’s temporary or if it’s permanent, that makes a difference too.
Raena Burch: Got it, okay. How long is a temporary child support order normally last?
Jonathan Breeden: It lasts until it’s replaced by a permanent order.
Raena Burch: Okay.
Jonathan Breeden: so
it can last forever unless it gets replaced by a permanent child support order.
Raena Burch: Got it, okay. Is child support required in North Carolina or can parents agree to no support?
Jonathan Breeden: Parents can agree to no support and it is not quote unquote required. The law says that each parent has a duty of support to their child.
How each parent pays for that duty of support, you. is up to the individual parents. A lot of people, particularly in [00:14:00] 50/50 custody situations, just split everything. And they split the school supplies, the school clothes, the extracurricular activities, the uniforms, the bats, the helmets, the co-pays stuff like that.
So those parents often don’t do a child support order. But those parents are providing a duty of support because they are supporting their children. They’re just not paying it to the other side. So, the parents can choose to not seek child support from each other. If they don’t want to and they can verbally agree to an amount that they believe meets the needs of the children.
And I think as long as both parents are participating and they’re helping, I think they are meeting their statutorial obligation of a duty of support to their child. Now, if the other parent is just gone and unfortunately we see a fair number of those then, you know, you’re going to need to go get a child support order to try to enforce anything at all. Because they’re not providing any of the day to day support.
They’re not [00:15:00] visiting. They’re not taking the kids to activities. They’re not helping pay for the activities. They’re just not involved in the child’s life completely. And that’s unfortunate, but
Raena Burch: It is
Jonathan Breeden: that’s how some people choose to be parents. Right.
Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don’t have to face it alone.
Raena Burch: All right. So, Last question, does a separation agreement affect child support in a negative way or do you think a positive way?
Jonathan Breeden: A separation agreement can include child support and often does. It is my advice and what we advise here at the Breeden Law Office is, that you not put child support into a separation agreement. A [00:16:00] separation agreement is a contract between two people and the enforcement mechanism for somebody not following a contract is a breach of contract action.
And so in that scenario, if Raena and I are getting divorced and we had a separation agreement, I would have to sue you for breach of contract. And we wouldn’t go to domestic court. We would go to contract court and the remedies for breach of contract are not as robust as they are for breach of a court order of child support.
You’re not going to jail for breaching a contract. But you will go to jail for breaching a court order for child support. So, what I always advise is that if you have an agreement on the child support, don’t put it in the separation agreement, put it into a child support consent order. Child support inherently is going to change through the life of the child.
A separation agreement is a stagnant contract that is [00:17:00] fully binding and is held to the four corners of the document on the date it’s signed. The children may be minors for another 15, 16 years and everybody’s financial situations, their needs are going to change. And if you’ve got it in a separation agreement, a court very well may depending on how it’s worded hold you to that amount when a actual child support amount through a court order could be two or three times that amount within 5, 6, 7, 8 years. Which is why it is not good to put child support in a separation agreement.
The other reason not to put child support in a separation agreement is, it’s part of a bargain for exchange. It’s part of the entire contract. So when somebody comes and looks at it and they say, okay, they divided a house, a 41k. Their personal property and here’s the child support. Well, The court later doesn’t know how you came up with that [00:18:00] number if you don’t tell it in the contract.
And so it’s going to say, that’s the bargain for exchange and that’s what the person owes. I’ve seen that work for the good and bad. If you’re in the military and you end up doing a child support in a consent order and you come out of the military and you’re making a lot less, which a lot of military members do when they come out. The court is going to hold you to the child support that you put in the separation agreement, even though you’re not earning that amount of money anymore.
That’s a problem, but it also can go the other way. Where you put child support into a separation agreement and let’s say the husband’s making $60 and the wife’s making $60 and five years from now, the wife’s making $120 and the husband’s making $90. Well that child support should be substantially different.
But yet here it is back in this contract that hasn’t changed. And it can only be changed by a consent of both parties. Well, [00:19:00] who’s going to consent to raise their child support, right? But if it’s in a court order, it’s been more than three years, you can go and review it. And So, that’s the thing. You can put child support in a separation agreement and have it modifiable in the future.
If the separation agreement clearly states that the amount of child support is based on the guidelines or is remotely close to the guidelines and is modifiable in the future by either party motioning a court of competent jurisdiction. If that line’s not there. The court is going to hold both parties to the amount of child support that’s in that contract forever. Which is not always what’s best for the child.
Raena Burch: No,
Jonathan Breeden: well, and
Raena Burch: if it’s already in the separation agreement, but the other party won’t consent to raise it. Can somebody file with child support services to get a court ordered child support? as long as the
Based on the current circumstances?
Jonathan Breeden: As long as the separation agreement [00:20:00] allows for it to be modified by a court of competent jurisdiction. If the separation agreement just says the child supports $500 a month. Then the court is not going to be in a position to modify it.
Raena Burch: Okay.
Jonathan Breeden: There are situations where the custodial schedule has completely switched. That might allow the court to then come in and award some child support, but that gets real complicated. And you definitely need to talk to a lawyer about that. But that’s why it’s our advice. And we could talk for another hour about this to leave child support. Because it’s inherently changeable and going to need to change out of separation agreements.
Raena Burch: Okay.
Jonathan Breeden: But you can do it and people do it. But it needs to have the right wording if you’re going to. Because nobody wants to be held to the child support You know, it’s 10 years old, right? Right. Okay. I don’t think that’s right.
Raena Burch: Yeah.
I mean
Jonathan Breeden: the person paying me because it’s often gonna go up.
Raena Burch: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. All right Well
good. All right.
Well,
Jonathan Breeden: I hope [00:21:00] y’all have enjoyed this special edition of The Best of Johnston County podcast called, Ask Jonathan Breeden Anything. If this is your first time listening to this podcast, if you would do us the favor of liking or subscribing or following this podcast wherever you’re seeing it. Whether it be on YouTube,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or you’re seeing any of the 60 second clips that are on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. You would be so kind as to also possibly leave us a five star review down at the bottom. Where you were receiving this podcast. It will help with our visibility. So more people will find out about The Best of Johnston County podcast. New episodes of The Best of Johnston County podcast come out every monday.
So, be checking back and looking for who the guests are going to be. If this is your 1st time listening, go back and listen to some of the previous episodes of The Best of Johnston County podcast. We’ve got some very interesting guests, including County Commissioner, Patrick Harris. County Parks, Director [00:22:00] Adrian O’Neal. Local Dentist, Dr. Tim Sims. County Commissioner Ted Godwin. State Representative, Donna White. And we even had a Financial Advisor, Chris Key on as well. Talking about ways that you can be better in your financial future. We’re here to try to educate you about what is great about Johnston County, and we will continue to do that.
Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.
That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.
If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.
Welcome to a special edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast, where we dive into a topic close to many of our hearts: family law, with a particular focus on child support. For this episode, we’ve departed from our usual format of interviewing community leaders and local heroes to bring you an “Ask Anything” session, aimed at shedding light on how child support is calculated, the consequences of non-payment, and much more.
Our discussions revolve around the intricate details of child support laws in North Carolina, a subject that touches the lives of many in our community. As the person behind the mic, my goal is to navigate these discussions in a way that brings clarity and helpful information to you, making the often complex territory of family law a bit more navigable.
A Deep Dive into Child Support Calculation
One of the most common questions we tackle is: “How is child support calculated?” Understanding that this is a fundamental concern for many, we explore the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines, discussing how the Conference of District Court Judges updates these guidelines every three years. We look into the inputs considered in determining what it costs to raise a child in our state, including housing, food, and other essential expenses.
The Consequences of Not Paying Child Support
Another vital topic we cover is what happens if child support isn’t paid. Many aren’t aware of the severe consequences that can follow, from being found in contempt of court to wage garnishment and even losing a passport. It’s crucial information for anyone navigating these waters, providing a stark reminder of the importance of adhering to child support orders.
The Process of Review and Modification
Life is ever-changing, and so are financial situations. We discuss how child support orders can be reviewed and modified, considering life events that significantly impact one’s ability to pay. Whether it’s a job loss, a change in custody arrangements, or income fluctuation, understanding how to approach the review process is key to ensuring that child support obligations remain fair and manageable.
Through this episode, the aim is to offer a comprehensive understanding of child support in North Carolina, removing the shroud of confusion and uncertainty that often surrounds this important topic. Whether you’re directly affected by these issues or simply interested in family law, there’s valuable insight and information here for you.
Listen and Empower Yourself with Knowledge
I encourage you to listen to this special edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. It’s not just an episode; it’s a resource designed to empower you with knowledge and insight on navigating the complexities of child support. Whether on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, tune in, learn, and let’s explore the depths of this significant topic together. Your understanding of family law starts here, and it’s a journey we’re on together, ensuring our community is informed, prepared, and supported.
AND MORE TOPICS COVERED IN THE FULL INTERVIEW!!! You can check that out and subscribe to YouTube.
If you want to know more about Jonathan Breeden, you may reach out to him at:
- Website: https://www.breedenfirm.com/
- Phone Number: Call (919) 726-0578
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