I pay child support to my ex-wife for my 17 year old daughter. My daughter will graduate high school at the beginning of June and will enter college in late August. She will move about 3 hours away from my ex-wife and live on campus. My daughter has obtained her own college student loans and scholarships. My daughter is already planning on getting a job to help support herself. Now the kicker! My daughter doesn’t turn 18 until mid October. I have been researching this situation concerning child support online but I can not find anything pertaining to North Carolina. Imagine that! So I am asking if I have to continue paying my ex-wife child support while my daughter is not living with her and is supporting herself? If I have to continue to pay child support, can the child support be given directly to my daughter? Or should I just file a child support modification and see what the judge says since there is no information about this situation published online?
The duration of child support is tied to the age of the child or graduation from high school. There is no provision in situations such as yours where the child does not turn 18 until after she begins college. Rather than going through the court, you could discuss this with your ex-wife and see if you can come to an agreement since it will only be 2 months of support payments.
That’s all well and good but it was explained to me that child support is based on how many overnights per month the child spends with the parent. Please see the NC Child Support Guidelines. So if my daughter goes from 28 overnights to a max of 4 overnights per month, what impact does that have on child support? Or is this something a Judge needs to decide?
I’m aware that the number of overnights a child spends with a parent are taken into consideration when the calculation for a child support obligation is completed, and you have a continued obligation to support your daughter until she reaches the age of 18, regardless of where she resides.