Help Court Date Tomorrow

I have a child support court date tomorrow with Judge Worley regarding reducing child support. Both my ex husband and I are PRo-se. He is trying to to reduce child support due to the fact that one of my children has turned 18. He is 6800.00 in arrears currently. Do I have the right to ask that hte child support remains the same until all arrears are paid? Thnaks.

I’m not sure what you mean here. I’m assuming the situation is something along the lines of he pays $350/month, with $150/month going towards the arrearage and $200/month for current support. The actual numbers don’t really matter, but most people can follow an example easier with numbers instead of “X” and “Y”.

If you’re asking whether you can ask the judge that the monthly payment towards the arrearage be increased to match the amount that the current support obligation is being decreased, I don’t know why you couldn’t ask. Using the example numbers above, if the current support obligation went down from $200/month to $100/month then the arrearage payment could go up from $150/month to $250/month so the total is still $350/month. Your ex-husband might even agree to that, since it would let him take care of the arrearage faster and if he’s paying interest on the arrearage it would save him money in the long run. And if you both agree, you could both ask the judge to implement your agreement (a “consent order”) instead of having to argue it out.

But my initial reading of your question (after hearing too many ex-wife horror stories) was that you wanted the amount for current support (the $200/month in the example) to continue unchanged even though one of the children reached age 18 (and presumably is no longer in high school) so the support obligation for that child is now supposed to be terminated. That would be entirely unfair, and I’d hope the judge would be harsh with anyone who actually requested such a thing. And I hope that’s not what you meant.