Child Support Modification
If child support is increased, can it be done without a court order? And do I have to be notified? That’s the question that we received through one of our websites. I’m a Tulsa attorney, James Wirth, and that’s what we’re gonna answer, is can child support be modified without a court order? The answer is no. Child support is by court order. If it’s gonna change, you gotta file a motion to modify, give notice to the parties, and then have a hearing and a judge determination on that, or if one party defaults, hearing just to get a default entered.
Navigating Court Orders
So if there has been a modification, where in this case there’s an income assignment that has gone up, then there’s gotta be a court order out there. So you wanna locate that court order. If you have a copy of the income assignment, that’ll give you the case number, find out how that order was entered. And it sounds like you didn’t get notice of it. So you wanna find out what did they file to demonstrate that you were properly served? Was the service personal, like through certified mail, or through process server, or are they alleging service by publication?
Taking Action for Fairness
Because if they could show due diligence, that they try to give you actual notice, the court may grant service by publication. If they serve it by publication, then that means they put it in a legal newspaper, requisite number of times, for a requisite duration of time. And if you didn’t enter the case at that point, then they could try to default you. But if the service is by publication, then Oklahoma law allows you an extended amount of time to file to vacate. Because courts do not like default orders, they like orders based on the merit. So in this case, you need to find that court order, find out how service was done, and you may need to file a motion to get that vacated because you didn’t have notice of it. And that way both parties can be heard. We can get a equitable, a fair child support order put in place. So you’re certainly gonna wanna look into that.
Seek Legal Assistance
You wanna talk to an attorney about that to get something scheduled with an attorney at my office. You can go online to makelaweasy.com.
