Posts tagged "child support"

When New York couples divorce, there are many issues that may arise during the divorce process. One of these may be child support. Parents who face a lengthy divorce may find that child support is an important consideration in order to ensure that the children are cared for during and after the divorce is final.

Recently, an out-of-state man has discovered that child support arrangements can change during the divorce process and can lead to complicated circumstances. The man happens to be the mayor of his home town. He and his wife have reached a temporary agreement to establish child support payments. The man reportedly was paying expenses for the children, as well as alimony for his ex-wife, after their 2011 divorce settlement. Now, the case is once again in the courts, and a temporary child support order of $1,850 per month has been issued.

Hudson Valley residents have no doubt seen the vast media reports on the divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Most recently in the saga are the reports of the extraordinary amount of child support that Cruise has agreed to pay Holmes for daughter Suri's care. According to recent reports, Holmes will receive $33,333 per month in child support for Suri, or $400,000 per year.

Along with the child support payments, Cruise will also still be responsible for medical expenses, education expenses, and insurance. These requirements will end when Suri turns 18. Holmes will not be receiving alimony or spousal support in the agreement. Though Holmes could have challenged the former couple's prenuptial agreement in an attempt to gain spousal support, reports indicate that her primary concern was a swift settlement.

New York music lovers likely know well the success that popular singer Stevie Wonder has had over the years. More recently, Wonder has been in the media regarding his not-so-successful marriage. After three years of separation to see if their marriage was reconcilable, Wonder filed for divorce to end his 11-year union to wife Kai Millard Morris. The couple has two sons, and in light of dramatic celebrity stories recently, the child custody proceeding is being watched in the media.

Citing irreconcilable differences, Wonder filed for divorce the first week of August. In the divorce filing, Wonder has requested joint child custody of the couple's two sons. The boys are seven and 10 years old. It has also been reported that Wonder is willing to pay spousal support and child support to his ex-wife.

One upstate county has been in the media recently as an investigative news team has begun "chasing down child support." So far the New York I-Team10 has researched child support payments owed for June of this year. The results of its investigation showed that the state of child support in Monroe County is bleak.

In an attempt to understand why the amount of child support owed is so large, the station's I-Team made an attempt to contact some fathers on the list of those owing significant amounts of child support. The first man the I-Team attempted to speak with reportedly owed $20,000, down from the more than $134,000 that it was last year. The person at the address listed for the father was uncooperative with reporters. The I-Team's research indicated that other New York parents owe $32,000, $46,000, and $55,000. The addresses listed on warrants turned out to be invalid.

New York residents likely know Christie Brinkley's face from her modeling career, but what they may not know is that she has been the center of an ugly divorce situation. In an effort to end the highly publicized bitter divorce dispute, Brinkley and her ex-husband have reached an out of court settlement. The couple reportedly will be relying on one facet of divorce mediation to finally settle a key outstanding issue of their 2008 divorce. The agreement late last month came one day before they were scheduled to appear before a judge.

According to reports, both parties are happy with the settlement that was reached. After finally ending what has been described as nasty correspondence regarding support of their children, and weathering a lot of media attention, the couple can finally focus on their individual lives and those of their two children. The settlement includes a parental coordinator who will help mediate the couple into the transition of peaceful living and co-parenting around their children.

Well known L'Oreal model Linda Evangelista and her son's father, Francois-Henri Pinault, have reached a child support settlement after days of court sparring. The couple has been battling over the amount originally requested by Evangelista, which some sources say topped $46,000 a month. Evangelista had said in court documents that that was how much she paid monthly for their son. She said it went for the nannies, security details, tuition, medical costs and more.

New York divorce attorneys have not been silent in their opinion of a sum so large being requested for child support, and many may think that it goes against the grain of New York child support standards. It may be hard to ever know, though. The judge presiding over the case sealed the settlement and the amount that was finally agreed upon has not been made public.

Some men who receive Social Security, disability and veterans' benefits may soon be without an income entirely, given a new federal policy change. The change affects those who have not paid child support and are receiving federal benefits by a paper check.

Men in the Hudson Valley could also be affected because they will be required to receive the benefits electronically, even if their bank accounts are frozen due to child support debts. Even if the men legitimately aren't able to pay the child support payments because of their disability, they may be out of luck if their benefits are deposited into a frozen account.

When couples with children divorce, there's often an understanding that financially, things will be a little tighter. The parent who is granted primary custody of the children often retains the family home, and the bills and other expenses don't shrink just because the number of places at the dinner table has. It can be a struggle for a single parent to afford everything their children need when they're trying to live on one income instead of two. That's the problem child support is supposed to address.

But that doesn't mean the parent who sees his or her children only on weekends and some holidays is living the high life. They're living on less income, too, and have new and possibly more expensive housing to pay for. And let's not forget that the lagging economy has affected almost everyone.

In New York, a woman whose father is a big-name photographer and whose ex-husband is a renowned chef is facing circumstances atypical of the rich and famous: she is having a difficult time providing for her children. She says this is because her ex-husband, celebrity chef Alan Harding, consistently failed to pay child support. She has filed a lawsuit, telling news reporters that the situation is making her life "completely difficult."

The woman has claimed that her ex-husband reneged on a mutually-agreed solution to the long-standing problem. She says Harding entered into a judicial consent order to sell a house he owned and deposit the overage of $115,000 into escrow for child support. But, she alleged, her ex-husband instead diverted much of the surplus to his brother and deposited only a quarter of the amount into the escrow account. Harding's lawyer responded that his client had paid the arrears to his ex-wife and would ask the judge to dismiss the lawsuit.