Child Support

Child support New York is the obligation to make payments for the financial care and support of your child during and after a separation or divorce. Generally, the non-custodial parent pays the custodial parent. A father may be required to pay the mother or the mother may be required to pay the father.

What Does Child Support Cover?
Child support New York covers a child's necessities and day-to-day expenses. Courts may order one parent to pay a specific amount to the other parent to cover part of a child's expenses, such as:

•Food
•Clothing
•Housing
•Education
•Health insurance
•Medical care
•Activities
•Child care
•Special needs

Calculating Child Support
States use different guidelines to calculate how much a parent should pay for child support. You may want to look at one of the many child support calculators available online.

Items that may be important to your state's child support calculation include:

•Parents' incomes
•Parents' assets (property, investments and so forth)
•Child's medical expenses
•Daycare costs
•Time child spends with the non-custodial parent
•Children's ages
•Child support or alimony from a prior marriage
•Insurance costs

Making Child Support Payments
In most states, child support must be paid on a set day each month. You may be able to set this schedule according to when you are paid. Most states have child support "registries" you can pay into each month. The money is then forwarded on to the custodial parent.

Paying into a child support registry is a good option, because then you have a government record of what you paid.

If you pay the money directly to your child's other parent, make sure to pay by check or money order, so that you can prove you've paid. Never pay in cash, no matter how insistent the custodial parent is.