Like most Georgia parents, you want what is best for your children. As a result, you may have gone back and forth between whether ending your marriage was the right decision and whether it would have negative impacts on the kids. While the transition to post-divorce life can be challenging, you know that children are resilient and can adapt, so you chose to move forward with the divorce.
Still, you and your ex decided that a joint custody arrangement was right for your family. You both understand the importance of being in your children’s lives, and neither of you wants to disrupt the possibility of the kids having both parents in their lives as much as possible. While this may have been a relatively easy matter to address, you may still wonder about child support.
Custody and support
Typically, when determining whether child support is necessary and the amount that needs to be paid, the custody arrangement plays an important part. Initially, you may have thought that child support would not be an issue because you and the other parent will both spend time with the kids. However, it is likely that the kids will stay with one parent more than the other by a significant amount. As a result, the court could issue a child support order.
If you end up being the parent needing to pay support, you may wonder how much support is really needed. After all, you will help shoulder the everyday responsibilities of raising your kids. In cases where the custody time is close to a 50-50 split, you may only have to pay half of a regular child support amount. For instance, if a regular amount would come to $300 a month, you would pay only $150 a month.
Gaining more information
The idea of still having to pay child support with a joint custody arrangement may seem unusual, but it does happen more often than many people think. Understandably, you may have concerns about paying child support and the amount of support. In order to gain more information, you will want to discuss your particular case with a family law attorney. You can learn how state laws affect this particular matter and whether you and the other parent could come to a support arrangement outside of court.
