Child Support
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Ohio law recognizes the need for a child to receive proper support and resources during their childhood. Whether you need someone to fight to establish a child support order, modify that order, or to enforce it against non-payment, we have the litigation experience you need.
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How Ohio child support is calculated
Ohio Courts use a standard formula across all divorce cases. This formula takes into account both parent’s income from the past three years. Income is considered to be all earned and unearned income regardless of taxability, and includes salary, wages, commissions, overtime, bonuses, tips, royalties, rents, dividends, severance pay, pensions, and any other monies earned.
Additionally, courts can impute income to you. Meaning that, if you voluntarily do not work full time or at all, the court will assign an amount of income to you that will be used to calculate child support. The courts will do this if you do not have a reason the court finds valid for not working.
The Ohio government has published a calculator to estimate your child support obligation, and you can use estimated income to help understand what estimated amount of child support you may be able to expect.
Exceptions to the standard formula
You can ask the court to modify the amount of child support in your case, asking for more or less child support depending on the facts of your case. The change must be in the child’s best interests, and the modification is based on these factors:
The final decision on whether a deviation is appropriate falls to the judge, unless both parents agree on more or less child support than what the formula determines.
How to modify child support
Once a child support order is in place, you can ask the court to change the order through a motion if a change of circumstances has occurred. Once the motion has been filed, the other parent will have the opportunity to respond to that motion. Your motion will either be granted or denied at a hearing before a judge.
If it has been 36 months since the court last issued or modified the order, you can ask your county’s Child Support Enforcement Agency for an administrative review.
Does child support end?
In Ohio, both parents have a legal duty to support their child until the child reaches 18, or longer depending on when the child graduates from high school.
Ohio Courts use a standard formula across all divorce cases. This formula takes into account both parent’s income from the past three years. Income is considered to be all earned and unearned income regardless of taxability, and includes salary, wages, commissions, overtime, bonuses, tips, royalties, rents, dividends, severance pay, pensions, and any other monies earned.
Additionally, courts can impute income to you. Meaning that, if you voluntarily do not work full time or at all, the court will assign an amount of income to you that will be used to calculate child support. The courts will do this if you do not have a reason the court finds valid for not working.
The Ohio government has published a calculator to estimate your child support obligation, and you can use estimated income to help understand what estimated amount of child support you may be able to expect.
Exceptions to the standard formula
You can ask the court to modify the amount of child support in your case, asking for more or less child support depending on the facts of your case. The change must be in the child’s best interests, and the modification is based on these factors:
- If the child has any special or unusual needs;
- Extraordinary obligations for other children;
- Extended parenting time or extraordinary costs from parenting time;
- If the child has any financial resources or earning ability;
- Disparity in income between parents;
- If the receiving parent’s income is below the poverty level;
- If either parent benefits from remarriage or sharing living expenses with another person;
- Taxes paid by either parent;
- Significant contributions from a parenting, such as direct payments for lessons, schooling, etc.;
- Extraordinary work expenses incurred by either parent;
- The standard of living the child would have enjoyed had the marriage continued;
- The educational opportunities that would have been available to the child if the circumstances requiring a child support order had not happened;
- The responsibility of each parent for the support of other minor children;
- Post-secondary educational expenses paid for by a parent for the parent’s own child, regardless if that child is emancipated;
- Costs incurred or reasonably anticipated to be incurred by the parents in accordance with court ordered unification efforts in child abuse, neglect, or dependency case;
- Extraordinary child care costs associated with specialized care;
- Any other factor the court found relevant.
The final decision on whether a deviation is appropriate falls to the judge, unless both parents agree on more or less child support than what the formula determines.
How to modify child support
Once a child support order is in place, you can ask the court to change the order through a motion if a change of circumstances has occurred. Once the motion has been filed, the other parent will have the opportunity to respond to that motion. Your motion will either be granted or denied at a hearing before a judge.
If it has been 36 months since the court last issued or modified the order, you can ask your county’s Child Support Enforcement Agency for an administrative review.
Does child support end?
In Ohio, both parents have a legal duty to support their child until the child reaches 18, or longer depending on when the child graduates from high school.
