How to Change a Child Support Order
by: Iowa Legal Aid
In Iowa, the law says parents must support their children. This is true whether the parents of a child live together or not. In many cases, there is a court order that says one parent must pay money to the other parent. This money is called “child support.” In most cases, the child lives with one parent or the other. The parent with whom the child lives is called the custodial parent. The parent with whom the child does not live is called the non-custodial parent. In most cases, the non-custodial parent is the one who must pay child support to the custodial parent.
Where Do Child Support Orders Come From?
Only a judge can create a child support order. There are several situations in which this happens. When a married couple gets divorced, the judge will write a document called a divorce decree. If the couple have children, the divorce decree will say which parent must pay child support to the other parent, and how much. Sometimes, the parents of a child are not married, but they still want a judge to decide things like who should have custody of the child and who should pay child support. In a case like this, the judge will write a document called a custody decree. Like a divorce decree, a custody decree usually says which parent must pay child support.
How is a child support order established?
A divorce decree or a custody decree is not needed to have a child support order. The state of Iowa has an agency called the Child Support Recovery Unit (CSRU). CSRU’s job is to help people get child support even when there is no divorce decree or custody decree. If you have a child, and your child’s other parent does not live with you, you can go to CSRU and ask them to go to court and get a child support order against your child’s other parent. There is a $25 fee for this service. If you start getting public benefits for your child, CSRU will ask the court for a child support order against your child’s other parent whether you want them to or not. Examples of public benefits are welfare payments from the Family Investment Program (FIP) and Medicaid (also called “Title 19”). When one parent gets public benefits for a child, the law says CSRU must get a child support order against the other parent to pay the state back for these benefits.
What can a child support order address?
It is important to remember that the child support orders CSRU gets only say who must pay child support and how much. They do not say anything about who should have custody of the child, who should have visitation with the child, who should pay spousal support (alimony), who should get which property, who should pay which debts, etc. Divorce decrees can talk about all of these things. Custody decrees can talk about anything that has to do with the child, like custody, visitation, and support. Child support orders can only talk about child support.
What Can I Do When the Child Support Payments Are Too High (Or Too Low)?
The law says the judge must look at a number of things when setting the amount of child support. The most important thing the judge must look at is the amount of money the non-custodial parent makes (remember, the non-custodial parent is the parent who is paying child support). The judge takes the non-custodial parent’s income and plugs it into a set of mathematical formulas called the Iowa Child Support Guidelines. The Guidelines are set every few years by the Iowa Supreme Court. The judge must set the child support payment wherever the Guidelines say it should be unless there is a very good reason for setting it higher or lower.
What happens if factors the support order is based on change?
Sometimes the judge sets the amount of child support, and then something changes so that the amount is no longer correct. Maybe the non-custodial parent gets a much better job and is making a lot more money. Maybe the non-custodial parent loses his or her job and is not making any money, or can only find a new job that pays a lot less money. Sometimes the non-custodial parent becomes disabled and is no longer able to work at all.
Either parent, or CSRU, can ask the court to change the amount of the child support payments. Often, the best way to get the size of the payment changed is to ask CSRU to do it. They will do it for free if the order is one they helped get. If not, you can get them to help for a small fee ($25).
The only problem is that CSRU will not help you change the child support payment in every case. There are two procedures CSRU can use to change the amount of child support someone is paying. One is called a “Review and Adjust,” and the other is called an “Administrative Modification.”
Review and Adjust. CSRU will do a Review and Adjust when there has been a change that would cause the amount of child support to go up or down by more than 20%. This change must be one that has lasted for three months and will probably last at least three more. An example of such a change would be the non-custodial parent becoming disabled. CSRU will also do a Review and Adjust if the child has no health insurance and the non-custodial parent becomes able to get health insurance for the child, such as through an employer. CSRU will only do a Review and Adjust if it has been at least two years since the last time the amount of child support was changed.
Administrative Modification. The other thing CSRU can do to change the amount of a child support payment is called an Administrative Modification. This can be done any time, no matter how long it has been since the last time the order was changed. CSRU will do an Administrative Modification when either parent’s income goes up or down by 50% or more. There are many other reasons for doing an Administrative Modification, though most of them don’t come up as often. CSRU will do an administrative modification when a child needs to be added to the order, when a parent who was a minor turns 18, when the original order did not set a child support amount or set it at zero, and when there is a mistake in the order that needs to be corrected.
If CSRU can’t help you change the amount of child support, you can always ask the court yourself. You will have to file a document called Petition to Modify Child Support. This document must be filed with the court and served on the other party as if it were a brand-new case. You will have to pay a filing fee, and the other parent will have to be served with a copy of your petition by the sheriff or a private process server. This way is much more difficult, and usually requires the help of a lawyer.
I’ve Become Disabled. Do I Still Have to Pay Child Support?
Yes. But if you have no income because you are unable to work, you are entitled to a reduction in your child support. If you start getting Supplemental Security Income (SSI), CSRU will usually recommend that your child support payments be reduced to zero. If you start getting money from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Social Security retirement, you will have to pay child support based on that income. However, if you are getting SSDI or retirement then your child is entitled to a check of his or her own. Your child’s check is treated as if it were money you paid. The amount of child support you pay every week or month is reduced by the amount of money your child gets from Social Security. Your child’s check may even reduce your payment to zero. This does not happen automatically, however. You must tell the court that your child is getting a check. The court will then change the order to give you credit for your child’s check.
My Child’s Other Parent Is Paying What the Guidelines Say, but it Costs More than That to Take Care of My Child!
You can still ask the court to change the non-custodial parent’s payment amount. The court can ignore what the Guidelines say if there is a very good reason for doing so. Sadly, it may not be enough to say that raising a child who lives with you is costing you more than it is costing the child’s other parent. As hard as the Iowa Supreme Court tries to make the Guidelines fair to everybody, the truth is that child support payments are almost never exactly half of what it costs to raise a child. They are usually less than half.
We Were Separated When the Child Support Order Was Created but Now We’re Living Together Again. What Can We Do?
There are a couple of things you can do. One thing you can do is to simply keep paying the child support. It will come to whichever parent is supposed to get it, and end up in the household budget anyway.
If you don’t want to do that, and CSRU is enforcing your child support order, you can ask CSRU to help you suspend the child support order. When an order is “suspended” it means the order is still there, but the non-custodial parent does not have to pay. If the parents split up again, either one can ask the court to “reinstate” the order, which means that the non-custodial parent must start paying again. If the order remains suspended for six months, it “terminates” or ends. After that, nobody can make the non-custodial parent start paying again except by going back to court and getting a new child support order.
What Is an “Arrearage?”
An arrearage is the total amount of child support that a non-custodial parent has not paid. If you are supposed to be paying child support, every dollar you don’t pay is added to your arrearage. If CSRU is helping enforce your child support order, they will collect a little extra with each payment. That little extra goes to pay off your arrearage.
If your arrearage is owed to the custodial parent, the custodial parent can forgive or “satisfy” it. He or she can do this by filing a written statement with the court that says he or she does not want the arrearage and does not want CSRU to keep collecting it. There is usually no way to force custodial parent to forgive an arrearage. If he or she wants to forgive past due child support, CSRU or your lawyer can help.
It is important to remember that not all of your arrearage is necessarily owed to the custodial parent. Some of it might be owed to the state because of public benefits that the state paid for your child. The state never forgives an arrearage. An arrearage owed to the state must be paid.
It is also important to remember that if you do a Review and Adjust, or an Administrative Modification, or a Petition to Modify Child Support, the only thing that will change is the amount of child support you have to pay every week or month in the future. Modifying your child support amount does not change your arrearage. There is no way to change an arrearage. It must be either be forgiven or paid off.
I’m Not Getting Visitation with My Child. Can I Ask the Court to Let Me Stop Paying Child Support?
No. Under the law, child support and visitation are two completely different things. A non-custodial parent must pay child support even if the custodial parent is not allowing visitation with the child. For that matter, a custodial parent may not refuse visitation just because the non-custodial parent is not paying child support. This does not mean it’s OK to refuse visitation, or to not pay child support. If there is a court order saying that a parent must allow visitation or pay child support, then that parent must do what the order says. If that parent refuses, the other parent (or CSRU) can ask the court to find that parent in contempt of court. There will be a hearing. If the judge decides that the parent really did refuse to obey the court order, the judge can punish the parent. The judge can punish the parent in various ways, including putting him or her in jail.
How Can I Contact CSRU?
There are 19 CSRU offices in Iowa. Each office serves several counties. To find the office that serves your county, call their main customer service number: 1-888-229-9223. Iowa Legal Aid publishes a booklet called Paternity and Child Support Law in Iowa. This booklet contains the addresses of all 19 offices. It is free to low-income people.
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