California Child support Laws are broad and complex. We will discuss some of the interesting and important provisions.
Under California child support laws, both parents of a child under age 18 have a duty to support the children. This duty is joint, equal and several. Fam C §3900.
California child support duty extends to adopted children because as soon as adoption takes place, the parents have all the rights and are subject to all the duties of the child-parent relationship.
One of the important points of California Child support laws is how Support Duty Is Shared. When father or mother has physical custody, his or her support duty is satisfied by caring for and maintaining the child. The other parent’s obligation is satisfied by his/her payment of child support to the custodial parent based on the CA support guideline.
When physical custody is shared, the court will consider the amount of time each parent has primary physical responsibility for the child. Under the family Code paragraph 4053, a parent with primary physical responsibility for a child is presumed to contribute a “significant portion of available resources for the support of the child.”
There are several provisions of California Child Support laws regarding the effect on Support Duty of Interference with Visitation or Concealment of Child
The existence of a child support obligation owed by a noncustodial parent is not affected by the failure or refusal of the custodial parent to implement the noncustodial parent’s visitation. If the child and the custodial parent ascertainable, the noncustodial parent can pursue remedies to enforce his/her court-ordered rights of visitation of the child. These remedies include contempt proceedings, requiring the custodial parent to secure a bond to ensure compliance with the visitation orders, or modification of existing custody orders. A non-custodial parent can also seek reimbursement for expenses resulting from his effort in exercising visitation privileges.
If non-custodial parent has evidence of interference with visitation rights by the custodial parent he can request that travel expenses be deducted from the guideline support amount.
Another provision of California Child support laws relates to parent’s active concealment of a child. Such behavior of custodian parent would result in some relief to the child support obligor. In some cases, it may prevent the custodial parent from recovering unsatisfied child support arrearages because the child support payments cannot be made to someone who cannot be found and trying to hide with the child from the other party. However, non-custodial parent needs to show the he/ she made reasonable efforts to locate the missing child and parent.
When a noncustodial parent locates the other party and child, the prior concealment will not affect continuing obligation for child support, although the estoppel defense can help to eliminate enforcement of prior arrearages accruing during the period of concealment.
Let take a look what California child support Laws has regarding Support for Adult children
An adult is a person who is 18 years of age or older. The parents’ obligation of support can be extended to their adult children if certain conditions are met even in the absence of the parent’s agreement,
According to California child support Laws, even the earliest a parent’s child support terminated when the child 18, that support obligation can extend beyond 18th birthday if the child is a full-time high school student, unmarried and is not self-supporting. The obligation will terminated if any of these conditions is not met or when the child completes the 12th grade or attains the age of 19 years, whichever comes first.
The California child support Laws do not require a child who is a student to show a good faith effort to graduate as soon as possible. In addition, the law does not require a student to take particular classes designed for faster graduation.
California Child support laws is very straight forward regarding incapacitated Adult Child Without Sufficient Means. Both parents have an responsibility to provide support for the adult children if they are without sufficient mean to sufficient mean to support and incapacitated from earning a living. The parents cannot change that duty by private agreement or eliminate the court’s jurisdiction to make support orders.
A parent’s duty to support an incapacitated adult child runs to the child. However, under California Child support laws the other parent could enforced that duty as well. When the adult child is not living with the parent, fully emancipated and nonpayer parent is not the adult child’s conservator, or legal representative, there is no needs for child support payments be made to that parent.
If adult child support is ordered, the statutory guidelines for minor children determines the amount of support.