Good Grief. Let her do what she wants with the changing of clothes situation. The kids will be fine unless YOU make a big deal out of it and bring it to their attention that it is weird of her to do it. Buy clothes for them to wear and keep at your own house. $500 a yr is NOT a lot of money to spend on kids clothes considering my kids grow out of 3 pairs of tennis shoes a yr at $20-$50 a pop. Imagine how quickly they grow out of clothes! Just reimburse her up to whatever the order states and no more and whenever it states you need to do this. No, she is not required to let you have some of the clothes b/c you didnt ask for it to be placed into the order. To amend the order it will open up the order for her to ask for more child support if he is making more money. What your husband pays in everything is NOTHING and a pretty good deal compared to what my husband pays for his one child.I say this out of the goodness of my heart and not to be ugly. Dont play control games with her. She is the mother of his children and she will ultimately win in court.
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[i]Originally posted by Mip[/i] $500 a yr is NOT a lot of money to spend on kids clothes considering my kids grow out of 3 pairs of tennis shoes a yr at $20-$50 a pop. Imagine how quickly they grow out of clothes!
That is not $500 per year. That is $2000 a year. His half is up to $250 per child in April and and up to $250 per child in August. The kids are not hurting for ANYTHING. He takes good care of his children, and being their mother does not automatically make her a saint. I know how quickly they grow out of clothes and strangly all the ones that don’t fit end up at our house. I told him that she was actually helping us by having them put on clean clothes even if they don’t fit as well and that is what they wear the next day back to her house. My issue with all this is why pay her for clothes that the kids don’t get to wear? Especially if she is going to take them back just to get the cash? What was the custody and child support battle all about if not to ultimately benefit the children[?] Why have an agreement if no one follows it? The children aren’t told a whole heck of a lot by us about any conflict we have with their mother, they hear enough of it from her. But they are smart enough to know that he pays child support to her to cover their expenses.
Psycologically they shd not know that he pays child support to her.
If that is what he agreed to you need to back out of it(I am also a stepmother to a child who recvs $900 a mnth for child support plus we pay meds,clothes,activities and college and we are by no means wealthy. This is just what my husband felt was right and fair for his son in his heart).
If she is trully returning the clothes for cash and you can prove it file a motion for reimbursement of what she has pocketed and to change the order that each household purchase their own clothes for the kids-just be careful because this cd open up her filing the motion to refigure child support for an increase-has his salary gone up?One other thing to think about-are the clothes she is buying ACTUALLLY children clothes? My husbands ex was buying clothes for herself and not for their son.I called the store on the receipt and asked what type of items these were and was able to prove they were womens and not boys-chk into it but dont kill yourself over it.
Strategically-maybe file a “motion to show cause” that she is not buying clothes for the kids or buying and returning for the money. If she is not keeping them for the kids your proof will show on credit card. You can supeana her credit card statement for the past yr and determine how much she has returned for credit. In any case be darn sure thats what she has done.
If he is responsible for up to $2000 a yr for two kids then that is what he must reimburse her for regardless of when she buys the clothes and gives him the receipts. He is only responsible for reimbursing her the amt in the order if she proves reciepts.
You cd possibly chk behind her to see if she has returned items by investigating the receipts yourself with the stores. Take the copies of the receipts to the store and have them pull them up and see if she returned any itmes-Target keeps copies of receipts in their computer-if you know her drivers license # you can pull up all her receipts by that and see what she has returned.
BTW-According to child support guidlines-Clothes are included in the calculation of the figure she gets so he is NOt leaglly responsible for the $2000 each yr if you were to return to court. How old is his order and does he pay thru the courts or directly to her?
This is only about 6 months old. His salary has not gone up and since he pays child support to Raleigh it can not be re-evaluated for another 2 1/2 years, but clothing was stated separately in their agreement. Neither of them have had any change in finacial status since the papers were signed, other than her boyfriend and her mother both moving in with her to help her pay her bills. Ultimately, he would be responsible for $1000 a year if she spends $2000. We aren’t disputing the amount or that he should pay. We are just trying to figure out if legally she should be giving him half of the clothes since he is paying for half of them. They are with us the same amount of time they are with her and in my opinion should not only have their “nice” clothes at her house.
He has not told the children anything until a month or so ago, when they demanded answers because their mother kept telling them about court dates, child support, custody and letting them read the papers with all the mud slinging. They are 7 and 10 years old. How much they understood about it? I don’t know. Even then he only explained that he was doing what he thought was best for them and the answers had very little detail.
We do not badmouth their mother to them in any way, shape, or form. My stepmother raised me, so I can understand what a fragile relationship stepparents have with their stepchildren.
Thank you for the suggestions about the receipts. I have been checking them but was having a little trouble finding out about some of the more suspicious descriptions.
I wd walk in the store to find out about the suspicious items-you may have to act like your questioning items you were charged for as being valid charges and you want to know what they are.
In my experiance if it was not stated in the order whether she wd send clothes to you or not then it is accepted as being ok that she does not, HOWEVER I think its worth a chance in court-make your own decision-I wd file a motion to show cause why she is not sending the children home with clothes which your husband agreed to split in addition of child support expecting that if he splits the cost then he gets to split the clothes (at least have a bg packed for them to have at his house)and he feels she is in contempt of their order for changing the clothes and not packing them clothes. This wd at least allow her antics to be heard in open court and let the judge decide.
If it were me I wdnt hire an atty for this, I represent myself and my husband does the same and it has worked for us. It sounds like t since he was agreeing to such a large amt ON TOP OF guidline child support that he was expecting or understood the purchases to be for BOTH homes. It makes sense that that wd be why he wd agree to such a thing. Because she is the mother seemed reasonable she shd take them clothes shopping, he is the father and most men are not interested in going shopping. At least get the chance to tell the judge that she is so stingy she is taking her time (maybe instead of working a job) to change the clothes of the kids off their backs.Dont expect to win-thats a bonus. Do hope to be heard and let the judge make a decision-dont go in asking to change the order since it is so young-do ask for a clause or determination fro the judge to be that both homes wd share the clothes and that she be held in contempt if she purposly damages the clothes before they get to your house. If she is buying herself stuff or making the returns I wd file a motion in contempt against her and ask for the order to be changed. Its a lot of info and no hope for your situation unfortunately. Good Luck though.
Background: My husband and his ex share custody of their two children. They stay the same amount of time with both parents. According to their court order agreement, he pays child support to the state, carries insurance, pays 1/2 of all medical/dental not covered, and pays for 1/2 of clothes twice a year, April and August, up to $250 per child 7 days after presented with itemized paid receipts. She has been having trouble getting the child support checks from the state due to a mix up of her address.
Current issue: She recently went to buy the children clothes and he agreed that he would pay her for what she buys now in April. (We both feel that if he paid her now she would go back in April to get more money from him) She brought him a couple of receipts that did not total $500 but expected him to pay her that amount now so she could go buy more. The children by no means need that many clothes right now, but that was the agreement so that is what she is going to spend. He told her that she actually had to spend $1000 before he had to pay her $500, and that he would pay her in April, since most were bought on credit the bills wouldn’t be due until then anyway. She has since gone to the sitters after the kids get out of school and made them change into their old clothes on the days that he is supposed to pick them up. When he asked her about it, she said that according to the papers she doesn’t have to give him any of the clothes, and that he wasn’t getting any of the clothes because he hasn’t paid her. We believe that if he does give her the full amount that not only will she still not give him any of the clothes but she will take half of them back to the stores. She isn’t worried about the children’s feelings in this as long as she can irritate him with it. [V] The children do not know why she is doing this. He’s at the point of just giving her the money so the kids won’t have to go through this anymore, and he won’t have to argue with her anymore. I have bought clothes for the children myself, which seems to make her mad, but we don’t know any other way for the children to have clothes at our house.[:(]
[?]Is there some legal way that he can get part of the clothes or should he just pay her and we go buy clothes that stay at our house? Is there an amendment or something they can add to the court order about this type of situation or would they simply have to go back to court?