· The financial resources of the child
· The standard of living of the child during the marriage
· The physical and emotional needs of the child
· The financial resources and obligations of both parents
· Any destruction, concealment, fraudulent disposition or excessive expenditure of jointly-held property
· The needs of the child
· The duration of parenting time and any related expenses

Arizona has a child support Clearinghouse you must pay into each month. The money is then forwarded on to the custodial parent.

Paying into a child support Clearinghouse is a very good idea, because then you have a government record of what you have paid, if there is ever a dispute as to how much you owe.

In Arizona, either parent may bring a Petition to ask the court to recalculate child support at any time.

If you're the paying parent, you may want to ask the court to recalculate child support when:

Your income has dropped dramatically or you become unemployed
The other parent's income has increased
Living expenses have changed in either household

If you're the parent receiving child support, you may want to ask the court for a recalculation when:

Wage Garnishment

Many child support orders have a clause that allows you to garnish the wages of the paying parent once payments become overdue. If your child support order doesn't have this language, you can ask the court to add it to your order.

A professional agency like us can prepare and serve the paperwork for a garnishment on the nonpaying parent's employer.

Once the garnishment takes effect, the current child support and some portion of the overdue child support is taken directly out of the nonpaying parent's paycheck each pay period.

The amount of wages that can be withheld each pay period for child support cannot exceed 50% of a total earinings in Arizona.

Child support garnishments usually take precedence over other garnishments, such as consumer debt garnishments.

License Suspensions

Under the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, all states must have procedures for revoking the licenses of non-paying parents.

Affected licenses include:

Driver's licenses
Passports
Professional licenses (medical personnel, lawyers and any other profession for which you need a license to perform)
Recreational licenses, such as fishing and hunting

Attaching Tax Refunds

If the nonpaying parent is at least three months behind in child support payments, the Federal Tax Offset Program allows you to attach (take) the nonpaying parent's federal income tax refund.

Liening Property

If you put a lien on the nonpaying parent's real estate, he or she won't be able to sell the property without paying the overdue child support.

Putting a lien on property is easy to do, but there's no guarantee the nonpaying parent will sell the property any time soon.

Federal Criminal Prosecution

The Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act (DDPA) makes it a felony to:

Move from one state to another to evade child support obligations
Fail to pay more than $10,000
Fail to pay due child support for more than two years

Contempt Motions

Another option might be to file a contempt motion against the parent who hasn't paid support, asking the court where the child support order originated to hold him or her in contempt for violating the child support order.

Hiring us is a fast and most efficient way of processing a contempt motion.

You will need the following information to file the contempt motion:

One study on children from divorced families shows that only 29 percent of them receive college support from their parents, as opposed to 80 percent of children from nuclear families.

College support may be part of ongoing child support or an additional obligation after regular child support ends.

Arizona has case law that give courts the authority to order a noncustodial parent to pay for some form of college expenses

Factors Courts Consider
Courts consider many factors in determining what contribution the noncustodial parent should make to college costs, including:

Whether the parents would have contributed toward the costs of college if the parents were still living together
The level of post-high school education of both the parents
Whether the parents would have expected the child to go to college if they were still living together
The financial resources of the child and both parents
The child's particular interests and academic achievements and goals
The ability of the child to earn income while in school
The availability of financial aid in the form of scholarships and loans
The relationship between the child and the noncustodial parent, including the child's responsiveness to advice and guidance
Voluntary Agreements

Arizona in most cases does not require a noncustodial parent to pay college expenses, the divorcing parties can reach an agreement as to how to pay for college, usually in the process of settling property and custody issues.

Agreements as to how to split college costs should be in writing and approved by the court to be enforceable.

Voluntary college support agreements should include:

A definition of college, typically defined as a four- year state university. The definition can include technical or trade schools, but should be broad enough to cover a number of possible options for the child
A definition of what expenses are covered. These might include tuition and educational costs such as books, room and board, transportation and personal miscellaneous expenses such as clothing
A limit on how long the obligation should continue, such as through a certain level of college or until the child reaches a certain age
Whether the noncustodial parent's payments will be made directly to the school, to the child or to the custodial parent
The child's responsibility to contribute toward paying expenses, typically defined as a percentage of the overall cost
Conditions that the child must meet for the parent's payments to continue, such as taking a fulltime course load, maintaining a certain grade point average and allowing the parents access to academic records
The agreement should also address the issue of how any loans or scholarships the child receives play into the mix. You can agree that this financial help lowers both parents' obligation, or you can count it as an offset toward the child's obligation to pay expenses.

When the child will be living at home with the custodial parent while attending college, it's important to carefully set out how and to whom room and board expenses will be paid.