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Anyone have experiences with adjusting child support in Missouri courts?

sunbeam0901's picture

Submitted by sunbeam0901 on Sat, 09/29/2012 - 2:01pm

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Family Court

My husband has 3 kids with his ex-wife. He had his child support adjusted when SD turned 18 in 2011. He has been paying the ex support for the other 2. My oldest SS recently started acting out and getting into trouble and in short, no longer can live with his BM. He has been living with us since May 2012. We are planning to go to court and have it lowered but are not sure if we will have difficulties because of the time period between adjustments. We have heard that MO only allows adjustments every 3 years. There has to be exceptions, right?! Situations do change & it seems wrong to have to pay her support for a child who does not reside with her & for whom she provides NOTHING for! I would appreciate any input I can get on this. Many thanks!

planningMyEscape's picture

Submitted by planningMyEscape on Sun, 09/30/2012 - 1:30pm

I wish you luck. I don't know how it works in Missouri, but I can say where I live, even though they are supposed to allow adjustments if there is a substantial change, that does not mean they will (especially if you've recently had a change). My SO had his child support changed in Jan of this year because his kids started living w/us over 50% of the time (of course BM does not work so she still gets child support anyway...)...well in April he lost his job and went back to get it lowered, and they refused and said they'd only change it once every 12 months. So, we've had to continue to pay the same amount even though he is no longer working.

The courts kind of suck that way sometimes. Good luck to you though, maybe you'll have better luck than we did.

StepKidto3Momto3's picture

Submitted by StepKidto3Momto3 on Mon, 10/01/2012 - 10:24am

Has DH filed for formal custody of SS? Could he include the request for the child support adjustment as part of the motion to change primary residential custody?

stepmama2one's picture

Submitted by stepmama2one on Tue, 10/02/2012 - 11:38am

If there is a significant change in circumstance then the 3 year threshold shouldnt be a problem getting around. However, is the SS living with you guys on an agreemant between DH and BM? If there is actually no court order saying SS lives with DH then the child support office wont stop making him pay support because they are going off of the court order that BM gave them when she started getting child support. If there is an order stating that DH now has custody then I would bring that when he goes in to lower the support or of course stop the child support on the SS. Without anything from the judge saying that custody of SS has changed from BM to DH then the child support enforcement probably wont lower or stop anything.