One of a parent’s most important responsibilities and legal obligations is to provide financially for their child’s basic needs. Many Illinois parents who are no longer married, or who were never married to their child’s other parent, rely on court-ordered child support to ensure the other parent’s fair contributions. However, married couples are typically left to manage child-related expenses on their own. This can make things difficult for a parent who is still legally married but in the midst of the divorce process, especially if their spouse is withholding income and assets.

If you are trying to get a divorce from a spouse who has abandoned you and your children, or who has cut you off financially, you may be able to petition for temporary child support before your marriage has been legally dissolved. An experienced divorce lawyer can help you understand your options.

Petitioning for Temporary Child Support

Providing for your children’s needs during the divorce process can be challenging, especially with the legal costs you are likely to incur. If you are struggling to provide and your spouse is not contributing, you can request a temporary child support order by filing a petition with the court that has jurisdiction over your divorce. Your petition will need to include a financial affidavit using a standard, statewide form, through which you will have the opportunity to explain your circumstances. You should also include any relevant evidence that supports your affidavit, including your bank statements, pay stubs, and recent tax returns.

When parents get divorced, there are a number of additional concerns that are unique to their situation. Both you and your co-parent will need to decide who will care for your child when, what parental responsibilities you will each take on, and how much child support will be provided from one parent to another. Most divorcing parents will have some form of child support order assigned to them, unless the parenting is 50/50 and the parents have almost identical incomes. How frequently does this happen? Not very often. 

Child support orders are meant to ensure that the parent with less parenting time is financially supporting their child, even if they do not care for the child as frequently as their co-parent. Unfortunately, child support payments do not always go as smoothly as they should, and your former spouse may not be meeting their payment deadlines each month. If this is the case, there are a few ways to enforce the financial assistance with the help of the court.

Determining the Amount Owed

Before any legal enforcements can be made, a judge must have proof of how much child support has been paid and how much is still owed. Finding documentation of these payments is dependent upon how the support is paid. For those who make payments through the Illinois State Disbursement Unit (SDU) or circuit court’s office, these two offices can provide a list of payments that have already been made and the amount still owed by the paying parent. It is important to keep your own documentation of these payments, in order to compare your records with those from the SDU or circuit court. If your co-parent simply pays you personally on a monthly basis (this is relatively uncommon), you will need to present your own evidence of the missing payments. From there, you can determine how much is still owed to you.

In Illinois, child support stops once the child turns 18 or when they have graduated high school – whichever happens later. Under Illinois divorce law, the court may order a parent to help pay for a child’s college expenses after child support has ended if the child is planning to continue their education. Although child support is required to be paid even for parents who never got married, Illinois does not require college expense payments to be made. If your child is planning to go to college, it is important to consult with a knowledgeable family law attorney to file a petition for college expense payments to be granted to your child since it will not automatically go into effect.

College Expenses

A support order can include several expenses related to college, such as:

• Registration and application fees
• Tuition
• Room and board (on or off campus)
• Educational fees
• Medical and dental insurance
• Books
• Travel to and from school
• Additional expenses

If the court grants college expenses to be paid, child support continues under the Illinois “college expenses” law that applies to non-minor children. 

Child support is relevant in any case involving a child whose parents are not married or in a relationship. Many times, the parent who takes care of the child a majority of the time will receive child support and use it to help cover some of the costs associated with raising a child, like clothes, food, healthcare, and schooling or extracurricular expenses. Both the courts and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) can issue orders requiring a parent to make support payments, but that does not always mean that the parent will obey. Unpaid child support can be frustrating for the parent who relies on it and can spell out serious trouble for the parent who will not pay. Fortunately, there are things you can do if your ex is not paying the child support that he or she is required to pay.

What is Failure of Support?

If a child support order is entered into by either DCFS or a judge, it has been determined that the parent has the financial resources available to pay the child support. If that parent refuses to make the support payments or does not make the payments, he or she can be considered to have failed to pay a support order. The Illinois Non-Support Punishment Act states that a person can be held in contempt of a support order if they:

• Refuse to pay spousal maintenance
  
• Refuse to pay child support and have the ability to pay such support
  
• Have not paid their support obligation for longer than six months or have accrued more than $5,000 in unpaid support
  
• Have fled the state to avoid paying support or owe more than $10,000
  
• Have not paid the support obligation for longer than one year or owe more than $20,000 

Steps You Can Take

Child support orders are court orders, meaning your ex has a legal obligation to pay the order or they could face consequences. This also means that you have the right to pursue legal action against your spouse for not paying the support. While you can work directly with the Division of Child Support Services (DCSS) to take legal action against your ex, working with an attorney is faster and can produce better results.

No two divorces are ever the same because no two families are ever the same. However, one constant that will always be present in divorce cases involving children is child support. In the state of Illinois, child support is an obligation that both parents have to a child. The state believes that parents have the financial responsibility of providing for their child, even if they are not a part of their child’s life in any other way. Child support is paid to the child’s main caregiver, typically the parent with the majority of parenting time, until the child graduates from high school or turns 18, whichever comes later. The amount of child support that is paid depends on a variety of factors, including the number of children who are receiving child support, the income of both parents and how much time the children are spending with each parent.

Modifying Child Support Orders

Many things in a divorce decree are set in stone and are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change once they are finalized. One of the things that can be changed, however, is child support stipulations. In general, Illinois child support orders are able to be reviewed and changed if needed every three years. The state of Illinois understands that sometimes circumstances change between those three-year marks, which is why you are able to petition for a modification if the need for change is urgent or if there has been a “significant change in circumstances.” 

What Constitutes a “Significant Change in Circumstances?”

The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act states that there are three reasons why a child support order can be modified: the original child support order deviated from the support guidelines, the order needs to address the child’s healthcare needs or there has been a significant change in circumstances. The most common reason a child support order is modified is that a parent claims there has been a change in circumstances since the order was entered. Examples of a significant change in circumstances include: