The Facts

• Child support is ordered when spouses are divorced or separated. If the spouses are separated, a divorce case does not have to be active for the court to order child support or for a child support agreement to be put in place. If your spouse does not agree to pay child support, you must petition the court for a child support order. If your spouse agrees to pay child support, but does not follow through with the agreement, you must also petition the court for a child support order. Child support is ordered so that the child may live in the manner he was accustomed to when he lived in a two-parent household.
  
  

Significance

• If the parents can agree on a child support payment amount that will be accepted by the state, and a time frame to pay the child support (weekly, monthly bi-monthly) it will be easier for the payer to work the child support around her paychecks. If the court orders the child support, it does try to work around the pay schedule of the payer, but may order the support to be paid at an inconvenient time for the payer, if that time is in the best interest of the minor children. If you and your spouse can make a child support agreement and stick to it, it may be better for the payer, based on her pay schedule, than a court-ordered one.
  
  

Function

• Child support agreements dictate how much child support shall be paid to the primary parent. A child support agreement also dictates when the child support will be paid. An agreement can dictate that monthly child support will be a certain amount, but the payer can pay in a certain number of equal installments weekly, bi-monthly or monthly. If you have children and you are getting divorced or are separated, child support must be paid in one form or another. An agreement is also better than a court order in that child support may be dictated in different forms (other than cash).
  
  

Types:

• Child support is generally paid to the primary custodial parent by cash means (this includes via check or bank transfers). The parties may also have a custody-sharing agreement where neither party pays child support. For example, the mother may be designated as primary custodial parent, but the visitation agreement states that each party will have custody of the minor children for 50 percent of the time over the year. If both parties make close to the same amount of money, the child support can be canceled out because each parent is supporting the child an equal amount of time.
  
  In this situation, if the parents have 50/50 custody, but one parent makes considerably more than the other, the parent who makes considerably more will still pay child support, but at a reduced rate.
  
  

Time Frame

• Child support is paid until the minor child becomes emancipated or turns a certain age. Some states use 18, others use 21. Some states require child support to be paid until a child is 18 or graduates from high school, if there is a reasonable expectation that the child graduates before his 19th birthday. This means that child support must be paid past the child's 18th birthday, if the child is still in high school, unless the child will not graduate before he turns 19, in which case, the child support stops on the child's 18th birthday.
  
  

Warning:

• The information contained in this article is not meant to be used as legal advice. This article is not written by an attorney, and only an attorney can give you legal advice on child support agreements and orders.