Alabama Child Support Laws

Child support is an essential part of the divorce and custody process. Knowing what rights you have to receive and give child support is important in the state of Alabama. Orders for child support are enforced by the Child Support Enforcement Division (CSE) of the Alabama Department of Human Resources.

Who Needs to Pay Child Support in Alabama?

Under Rule 32 of Alabama’s laws on custody and support, the parent who does not have custody (the “noncustodial parent”) must pay child support.

Even if the noncustodial parent has visitation rights and thus may spend a lot of time with the child, they cannot escape their child support obligation. However, the amount they are expected to pay can be reduced if visitation is more than the typical number of visitation days granted since the noncustodial parent is taking on more than the usual amount of the daily financial burden of raising the child.

Standard visitation in Alabama is usually the 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends of a month, plus Wednesday from 3 p.m. to Thursday to 8 p.m. For a child’s summer vacation, standard visitation usually consists of half of the summer for a child’s summer vacation.

When making any type of determination regarding child support, custody, or visitation, courts will always prioritize the child’s needs over the parents’ needs. The custodial parent may be feeling especially generous and wish to turn down child support, or on the other hand, may be intimidated by the other parent and thus wish to pass up child support for that reason, but they are not allowed to do so.

The right to child support belongs to the child – their money. The custodial parent does not have the right to decline payment.

How Do I Petition for Child Support in Alabama?

If both parents can agree on a child support amount on their own, they can submit their voluntary child support agreement to the court in their papers for custody, legal separation, or divorce. The court will analyze the parents’ financial information and the child’s financial needs and approve or deny the amount the parents have agreed upon.

If there is no agreement, unless you are married to the other parent (marriage creates a presumption that the child is the child of both of the married parties), the first step is to establish paternity if that has not been done already.

The next step is to include a request for child support in your custody, legal separation, or divorce proceedings. To determine how much child support you will be entitled to, you will need to know the following:

• Both parents’ gross income
• Any payments already made by the non-custodial parent (e.g., daycare, health insurance, etc.)
• The amount of child support or alimony each parent pays to or receives from a prior partner

If you cannot figure out your partner’s financial information, you can get help from the court in these matters by asking for the State IV-D Attorney’s assistance. That lawyer can then find out all the financial information about both parents, can help establish paternity, and present that information to the court.

Alabama provides a child support calculator on the internet. Once you have the needed information, you can put those figures into the spaces in the calculator where they are called for. Once the court has all of this information, as well as other information such as the child’s current cost of living, it will determine how much financial support the noncustodial parent should provide to the custodial parent and will issue an order requiring the noncustodial parent to pay that amount.

What If the Other Parent Does Not Pay the Child Support?

If the other parent refuses to pay child support, there are several options available to you for enforcement:

• One way to enforce a child support order is income withholding, where the state will take the money directly from the parent’s paycheck. This is done through the Department of Human Resources’ Child Support Enforcement Division.
• The judge who wrote the child support order can also take measures to enforce it. For instance, it can have the delinquent parent’s income tax refunds garnished.
• If a parent owes $1,000, the court may place a lien on personal or real property.
• The court can also find the non-paying parent in civil contempt and put them in jail for failing to adhere to the terms of the child support order.
• A noncustodial parent can even be arrested and brought to court if they are issued a “failure to appear” subpoena because they don’t attend a child support hearing.
• Furthermore, if a parent is $1,000 behind on child support payments, it can be reported to the major credit bureaus, which will create a negative report in the parent’s credit history.

What If I am Struggling to Pay or Cannot Afford to Pay for Child Support in Alabama?

If you are having serious trouble meeting your child support obligations, you can return to court to request that the judge modify your child support payments to lower your payment amount. To convince a judge to lower the amount you are required to pay, you will need to show a significant change in your circumstances, usually in terms of your finances (such as a loss of employment).

Often, when you stop paying child support, the custodial parent will often refuse to allow you to visit with your child. This is not legal. If the custodial parent refuses to let you have visitation, you have the right to go to court to demand visitation. Even if you are behind on child support, you cannot be denied visitation in Alabama. You can ask the court for a contempt hearing to find the other parent in contempt for not letting you visit your children as ordered by the court. You must show how you tried to exercise your visitation rights and how the other parent denied you. However, you should know that if you are behind on payments.

How Can I Stop Paying Child Support in Alabama?

There are some legal ways to stop paying child support. One option is to challenge the validity of requiring you to pay child support. You can submit a petition for a paternity determination if you think you are not the biological father.

Another way, and maybe the easiest, is to agree with the other parent. You could agree with each other to not pay child support but, perhaps, make up the payments by buying a house for the custodial parent and the child. Even if you come up with such an agreement, it does have to be approved by the court, which may deny the agreement if it is not in the best interests of the child (as discussed above)

If you increase your visitation days until you are the custodial parent, you will no longer be required to pay child support.

Where Can I Find the Right Child Custody Lawyer in Alabama?

It is important to find an Alabama child support lawyer who can better your efforts to reach a good child support arrangement with your child’s other parent. Parents frequently find discussions about child support to be filled with emotion. It will be better for you if you have a third party conduct those negotiations to make the process as drama-free as possible.

A lawyer’s assistance is especially necessary when you need to enforce or alter a child support order. If the other parent has an attorney, then you especially need one.