IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NORTH CAROLINA

2022-NCCOA-487

No. COA21-595

Filed 19 July 2022

Wake County, No. 15 CVD 2297

JOAN BRITT, Plaintiff,

and 

WAKE CO. HUMAN SERVICES, CHILD SUPPORT ENF., Intervenor Plaintiff,

v.

ERVIN BRITT, Defendant.

Appeal by defendant from order entered 30 April 2021 by Judge David Baker

in Wake County District Court. Heard in the Court of Appeals 27 April 2022.

Wake Family Law Group, by Nancy L. Grace and Melanie C. Phillips, for 

plaintiff-appellee.

No brief filed on behalf of intervenor-plaintiff.

Gailor Hunt Davis Taylor & Gibbs, PLLC, by Jonathan S. Melton, for 

defendant-appellant.

ZACHARY, Judge.

¶ 1 Defendant Ervin Britt appeals from an order requiring him to pay child 

support to Plaintiff Joan Britt for the support of their two minor children, E.B. and 

R.B.1 After careful review, we affirm.

 

1 We use initials to protect the identities of the juveniles.
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Background

¶ 2 Plaintiff and Defendant married in 1999 and separated in 2014. There were 

two children born of the parties’ marriage: E.B., born in 2004, and R.B., born in 2009. 

On 19 February 2015, Plaintiff filed a complaint seeking, inter alia, child support and 

equitable distribution of the parties’ marital assets. On 18 August 2016, Wake County 

Human Services, Child Support Enforcement filed a motion to intervene on Plaintiff’s 

behalf seeking to sever the child support claim from the collateral claims, which the 

trial court granted. On 18 August 2017, the trial court entered a temporary child 

support order, obligating Defendant to pay $375.00 per month in child support, 

together with $25.00 per month toward Defendant’s child support arrears of

$7,500.00.

¶ 3 On 1 May 2018, the trial court entered a consent order executed by the parties

resolving the equitable distribution claim. The parties agreed that Plaintiff would, 

inter alia, receive a distributive award of $110,000.00, which Defendant would pay to 

her at the rate of $4,000.00 per month.

¶ 4 The child support claim came on for hearing on 30 April 2021 in Wake County 

District Court. At trial, Defendant testified regarding his income. Defendant 

explained that he owned two businesses: Five-O Servicing, LLC, an HVAC company, 

and D Britt Enterprises, a real estate holding company. He also owned ten rental 

properties, all of which were encumbered by mortgages at various financial 
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institutions. Defendant estimated that he made “[l]ess than a hundred bucks” per 

month from Five-O Servicing; he only worked there one to two hours per week 

because the company was “in the process of being closed down.” He also stated that 

“D Britt [Enterprises wa]s closed.” Defendant testified that he received

approximately $7,000.00 per month in rent from his properties, and he “guess[ed]” 

that after expenses, he had a net rental income of approximately $1,050.00 per month

from the properties. He further testified that he did not know from which bank 

accounts he paid the mortgages on the various properties. 

¶ 5 Several financial documents that were admitted at trial related to a third

company, DER Enterprises, Inc. Defendant testified that DER belonged to his 

mother, who owned three rental properties, and that he did not control the company. 

However, he confirmed that he was a signatory on the two DER bank accounts in 

order to help his elderly mother. When asked why money was repeatedly transferred 

from the DER bank accounts to Defendant’s accounts, Defendant replied, “I’m sure it 

was to keep one of the properties from going out of foreclosure.” In contrast, Plaintiff 

testified that she and Defendant originally owned DER, but placed it in Defendant’s

mother’s name to avoid creditors during the 2008 housing market crash. She 

elaborated: “[T]here was just no way for us to keep up with the bills and the debt we 

were creating, so -- I mean, we had creditors all the time, so we changed it over to her

name so they, you know, couldn’t get at us directly . . . .” 
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Opinion of the Court

¶ 6 Defendant testified that in addition to running his own businesses, he also 

worked as a “contractor” for Raleigh Air, an HVAC business owned and operated by 

his live-in girlfriend. At the time of trial, Defendant had worked at Raleigh Air for 

approximately one year for about “eight hours a day every other day, maybe.”

Although he was merely a “contractor” with Raleigh Air, Defendant transferred his 

HVAC license from his company, Five-O Servicing, to Raleigh Air to expand Raleigh 

Air’s offered services. Moreover, Defendant contributed to Raleigh Air’s advertising

campaigns and interviewed candidates for employment with the company. Defendant 

maintained that he was not paid for this work; rather, his employment with Raleigh 

Air “started as a loan type of situation,” and he worked for the company in an effort 

“to pay [it] back and make goodwill[.]” While Defendant conceded that money was 

deposited monthly into his personal bank account from the Raleigh Air bank account, 

he testified that this was not income to him. Instead, the money was intended to 

reimburse him for his girlfriend’s portion of the mortgage payment on their shared

residence. Defendant also stated that he has used a Raleigh Air credit card to cover

his personal expenses, such as lunches, without advance authorization from the 

company. On one occasion, he also used the card to purchase airline tickets to 

Washington for himself and his children.

¶ 7 At trial, Plaintiff’s counsel questioned Defendant regarding the itemized lists

that Defendant created purporting to track his business expenses. Defendant 
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conceded that a list of Five-O Servicing’s expenses for the year 2020 was inaccurate, 

in that it listed the salaries for employees who were actually contractors for Raleigh 

Air; he confirmed that the list contained the salaries “in order to claim th[ose] 

expenses for Five-O[.]” Regarding another itemized list of his expenses from 1 

January through 2 April 2021, Defendant initially asserted that the list solely 

comprised expenses “for the apartments.” However, the list also contained an expense

explicitly related to DER. When he was asked about this expense, Defendant 

responded that “[i]t could be anything[,]” and suggested that perhaps he had 

performed HVAC services for DER. 

¶ 8 Other items on Defendant’s list of business expenses from 1 January through 

2 April 2021 included $962.91 from 2020, which Defendant confirmed were personal 

expenses; the nearly $4,000.00 mortgage payment on Defendant’s personal residence, 

which he contended was a business expense; and over $13,000.00 in “separation” 

expenses, which Defendant conceded should not have been included as a business 

expense. Defendant acknowledged that this list contained “some errors” and 

confirmed that a qualified accounting professional had not reviewed it. 

¶ 9 Plaintiff also introduced bank statements for the two DER accounts. These 

statements evidenced several mortgage payments for various properties, but did not

indicate the amount of each payment that was attributable to principal versus the 

amount attributable to interest. Additionally, despite Defendant’s assertion that he
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Opinion of the Court

was a signatory on the DER accounts simply “to help [his mother] with her bills[,]”

Defendant could not describe how he paid the mortgages on his mother’s properties, 

stating only that the mortgage payment process was “automatic.” Regarding his 

ability to pay the mortgages on his own properties, Defendant explained: “The 

apartments bring me money; the mortgages get paid.” Furthermore, Defendant could

not articulate which expenses were satisfied with the transfers to the DER accounts.

Concerning the January 2020 deposits from the Raleigh Air bank account into a DER 

account, Defendant testified that he “assum[ed] there’s something that went on that 

[his mother] needed money for the apartments or something.” 

¶ 10 Before entering its order, the trial court orally rendered its ruling. Addressing

Defendant with regard to his testimony concerning his income and expenses, the trial 

court stated:

[T]he Court has wrestled with how to calculate your

income. . . . [T]he deposits into the accounts, that’s the one 

thing that this Court can be certain of. However, there’s no 

evidence of what the expenses are associated with any of 

your business enterprises. And I’ll just be honest with you, 

I don’t think I’ve found myself in a situation where I 

declare a witness just completely not credible, but it 

appears to the Court that you’ve gone to great lengths to

portray your income at an artificial low and that your 

testimony was largely evasive with the purpose of 

misleading the Court about your stake, your role and 

interest particularly in the business of Raleigh Air.

But this Court will find that the bank account . . . for DER 

Enterprises . . . is an account that [Defendant] has access 
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Opinion of the Court

to, that he utilizes for -- that he has access to and that he

utilizes for his personal and business expenses. And 

although he’s testified that it’s his mother’s account, that 

in light of the deposits and withdrawals that indicate that 

[Defendant] is largely in control of this account and that 

it’s appropriate, fair and just for this to be included in the 

calculation of his income. 

I don’t really even know where to start with the contentions 

about your role in Raleigh Air. You’re all over the place. 

And when I sit here in this capacity, representing the Court 

of Justice, it’s really appalling when someone goes to the 

lengths that you’ve gone . . . to mislead the Court. I want 

to be clear about that. You haven’t fooled anyone.

In light of Defendant’s “evasive” testimony and Plaintiff’s testimony that the parties 

“shifted and diverted their holdings with DER” to “avoid[ ] debt collection and debt 

collectors,” the trial court further found that Defendant “ha[d] done likewise” with

his assets in Raleigh Air in an attempt to avoid his child support obligation.

¶ 11 In its order entered 30 April 2021, the trial court found that Defendant was 

self-employed in “HVAC + Real Estate Rentals[,]” and that he owned multiple 

businesses. The court determined that Defendant had a monthly income of

$24,085.00 based on evidence presented at trial of the monthly deposits into his 

various bank accounts, and the court imputed income of $3,333.00 per month to 

Plaintiff. The trial court accordingly ordered, inter alia, that Defendant (1) contribute 

$2,040.23 per month to the support of the parties’ minor children beginning 1 May 

2021, in accordance with the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines; and (2) pay 
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his child support arrears of $6,059.00 to Plaintiff in full by 30 May 2021. Defendant 

timely filed notice of appeal. 

Discussion

¶ 12 On appeal, Defendant argues that the trial court erred by failing to (1) deduct 

the “ordinary and necessary expenses” from Defendant’s self-employment business 

receipts in its calculation of his monthly gross income; (2) provide a rationale as to 

why the court did not deduct the expenses; and (3) deduct Defendant’s temporary 

child support and equitable distribution payments from his monthly gross income in 

its calculation of his monthly adjusted gross income. 

I. Standard of Review

¶ 13 “Child support orders entered by a trial court are accorded substantial 

deference by appellate courts and our review is limited to a determination of whether 

there was a clear abuse of discretion.” Jonna v. Yaramada, 273 N.C. App. 93, 100, 

848 S.E.2d 33, 41 (2020) (citation omitted). “A judge is subject to reversal for abuse 

of discretion only upon a showing by a litigant that the challenged actions are 

manifestly unsupported by reason.” Plott v. Plott, 313 N.C. 63, 69, 326 S.E.2d 863, 

868 (1985) (citation omitted). Because the North Carolina Child Support Guidelines 

vest a trial court “with the discretion to disallow the deduction of any business 

expenses which are inappropriate for the purposes of calculating child support, the 

trial court’s decision to disallow the claimed expenses must be upheld unless it is 
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‘manifestly unsupported by reason’ and therefore an abuse of discretion.” Cauble v. 

Cauble, 133 N.C. App. 390, 395, 515 S.E.2d 708, 712 (1999) (citation omitted).

¶ 14 “[U]nchallenged findings of fact are binding on appeal.” Kleoudis v. Kleoudis, 

271 N.C. App. 35, 39, 843 S.E.2d 277, 281 (2020) (citation omitted). “Furthermore, 

evidentiary issues concerning credibility, contradictions, and discrepancies are for 

the trial court—as the fact-finder—to resolve and, therefore, the trial court’s findings 

of fact are conclusive on appeal if there is competent evidence to support them despite 

the existence of evidence that might support a contrary finding.” Sergeef v. Sergeef, 

250 N.C. App. 404, 406–07, 792 S.E.2d 192, 194 (2016) (citation and internal 

quotation marks omitted).

II. Analysis

¶ 15 Defendant first argues that the trial court erred by declining to deduct the 

“ordinary and necessary expenses” from Defendant’s business receipts when 

calculating his monthly gross income for child support purposes. Specifically, he 

asserts that the court erroneously failed to deduct the recurring “withdrawals for at 

least 5 mortgages and a pest and termite service[.]” We disagree.

¶ 16 “The calculation of child support is governed by North Carolina Child Support 

Guidelines established by the Conference of Chief District Court Judges.” Craven Cty. 

v. Hageb, 277 N.C. App. 586, 2021-NCCOA-231, ¶ 12 (citation omitted). The 

Guidelines define “gross income” as “a parent’s actual gross income from any source, 
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including but not limited to income from employment or self-employment . . . , 

ownership or operation of a business, partnership, or corporation, [or] rental of 

property[.]” N.C. Child Support Guidelines, at 3 (2019).

¶ 17 The actual gross income derived from self-employment is calculated by 

subtracting the “ordinary and necessary expenses required for self-employment or 

business operation” from the gross receipts. Id. “ ‘Ordinary and necessary expenses,’

although not specifically defined in the Guidelines, include expenses for repairs, 

property management and leasing fees, real estate taxes, insurance, and mortgage 

interest. Mortgage principal payments, however, are not an ‘ordinary and necessary 

expense’ within the meaning of the Guidelines.” Lawrence v. Tise, 107 N.C. App. 140, 

149, 419 S.E.2d 176, 182 (1992).

¶ 18 Here, given the proffered evidence of Defendant’s business expenses—or lack 

thereof—the trial court did not err by declining to deduct any expenses from 

Defendant’s business receipts in its calculation of Defendant’s gross income for child 

support purposes. The transcript supports the trial court’s finding that there was “no 

evidence of [which] expenses [were] associated with any of [Defendant’s] business 

enterprises.” Defendant did not introduce any documentation of his income and could 

only provide a rough estimate of the amount that he derived from his apartment 

rentals and other businesses; he did not provide any recent tax returns, because he 

had not filed an income tax return since 2017; he testified that he was unsure how 
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the apartment mortgages were paid; and his itemized list of business expenses 

included some which were clearly illegitimate, such as Defendant’s home mortgage 

payment and Defendant’s “separation” expenses, which he conceded were not 

business expenses. 

¶ 19 Moreover, although two exhibits listed the pest control expense, Defendant

failed to provide sufficient credible information concerning the expense to permit its 

consideration by the trial court. The itemized list of expenses from 1 January through 

2 April 2021 contained a $140.00 expense for “pest” under “office” expenses, but the 

trial court, as fact-finder, was not required to accept this bare assertion at face value,

in light of its determination regarding Defendant’s lack of credibility. See Sergeef, 250 

N.C. App. at 406–07, 792 S.E.2d at 194.

¶ 20 Indeed, the court found that Defendant was not credible, as he “was largely 

evasive [in his testimony] with the purpose of misleading” the court. Defendant does 

not challenge this finding, and thus, it is binding on appeal. Kleoudis, 271 N.C. App. 

at 39, 843 S.E.2d at 281. Further, Defendant conceded at trial that the list of expenses

contained errors, and that a qualified accounting professional had not reviewed it. 

And while the bank statements for one of the DER accounts also listed a monthly pest 

control expense of $70.00, Defendant failed to indicate whether that expense was 

incurred for his or his mother’s rental properties, or for one of their personal 

residences. Therefore, because the trial court found that Defendant offered no reliable 
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evidence as to the pest control expense—a determination supported by the court’s

binding finding concerning the incredibility of Defendant’s testimony—the trial court 

appropriately exercised its discretion by declining to consider pest control expense as 

an ordinary and necessary business expense. See Cauble, 133 N.C. App. at 395, 515 

S.E.2d at 712.

¶ 21 Regarding the interest portion of the mortgage payments on Defendant’s rental 

properties, Defendant presented insufficient evidence to warrant its inclusion as a 

business expense. Although Defendant testified that the monthly mortgage payments 

on some of his rental properties, his mother’s residence, and her rental properties 

were paid from the DER accounts, he could not identify the specific properties 

associated with those mortgage payments. With this incomplete picture of 

Defendant’s expenses, the trial court could not adequately distinguish whether the 

proffered expenses were Defendant’s personal expenses or expenses associated with 

Defendant’s business or his mother’s business. Furthermore, even if Defendant had 

identified the mortgage payments which were attributable to his rental properties, 

full mortgage payments do not constitute “ordinary and necessary expenses” for the 

purpose of calculating child support. Lawrence, 107 N.C. App. at 149, 419 S.E.2d at 

182 (“Mortgage principal payments . . . are not an ‘ordinary and necessary expense’ 

within the meaning of the Guidelines.”). Additionally, Defendant did not provide any

evidence regarding the “expenses for repairs, property management and leasing fees, 
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real estate taxes, insurance, and mortgage interest[,]” id., or any other “ordinary and 

necessary expenses required for self-employment or business operation[,]” N.C. Child 

Support Guidelines, at 3. 

¶ 22 Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that there 

was no competent evidence of Defendant’s “ordinary and necessary expenses[,]” id., 

and appropriately declined to deduct the pest control expense and the mortgage 

payments from Defendant’s business receipts in its calculation of Defendant’s gross 

income for child support purposes, see Cauble, 133 N.C. App. at 395, 515 S.E.2d at 

712.

¶ 23 Defendant next asserts that the trial court was “required to make findings why

the expenses [Defendant] testified about and that were admitted into evidence were 

not considered in the calculation of his income.” In support of this contention, 

Defendant cites Thomas v. Burgett, 265 N.C. App. 364, 852 S.E.2d 353 (2019).

However, as explained below, Defendant’s reliance on Thomas is misplaced.

¶ 24 In Thomas, this Court vacated in part and remanded a child support order in 

which the trial court failed to articulate its reason for excluding particular expenses 

related to the defendant’s rental property. 265 N.C. App. at 368, 852 S.E.2d at 357.

The Court explained that “even if the trial court chose not to find [the defendant]’s 

evidence credible at all and therefore did not factor it into its computation, its findings 

d[id] not provide its rationale for doing so.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks 
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omitted). The Court determined that vacatur and remand were necessary because 

“[w]ithout any evidence indicating the trial court’s contemplation of those expenses, 

we do not have enough findings to conduct adequate review.” Id.

¶ 25 In the case at bar, the trial court sufficiently provided a rationale for not 

factoring Defendant’s proffered evidence of pest control expense into its calculation 

of his gross income: it did not find the evidence to be credible. And, unlike the trial 

court in Thomas, the court here articulated at trial why it did not find Defendant’s 

evidence to be credible: namely, that Defendant’s testimony “was largely evasive with 

the purpose of misleading” the court, a sentiment reiterated in the court’s written 

finding that Defendant’s “testimony was largely evasive with the purpose of 

misleading the court as to his income[.]” This finding, unchallenged by Defendant, is 

binding on appeal. Kleoudis, 271 N.C. App. at 39, 843 S.E.2d at 281. Moreover, 

because Defendant did not offer any evidence of the interest portion of the mortgage 

payments on his rental properties, the court did not need to provide a rationale for 

not considering the interest as a business expense, as there was no evidence for the 

court to consider.

¶ 26 Thus, given that the trial court provided a rationale for not accepting 

Defendant’s evidence of any pest control expense—that Defendant’s evasive and 

misleading testimony undermined the credibility of his proffered evidence—and that

the court required no rationale for declining to consider evidence of the mortgage-
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interest expense where Defendant offered none, we conclude that the court provided 

sufficient findings of fact in its order to enable appellate review. See Thomas, 265 

N.C. App. at 368, 852 S.E.2d at 357. Defendant’s argument accordingly fails.

¶ 27 Finally, citing no authority, Defendant contends that the trial court erred in 

calculating his monthly adjusted gross income by failing to deduct Defendant’s 

temporary child support and equitable distribution payments from his monthly gross 

income. This argument is manifestly without merit.

¶ 28 The Guidelines prescribe particular instances in which a parent is entitled to 

receive a deduction from his or her monthly gross income for the purpose of 

calculating child support: (1) where a parent is responsible for child support payments 

on behalf of a child other than the child for whom support is sought in the present 

action; and (2) where a parent is responsible for the financial care of “his or her 

natural or adopted children who currently reside with the parent (other than children 

for whom child support is being determined in the pending action).” N.C. Child 

Support Guidelines, at 4.

¶ 29 In the instant case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to 

deduct Defendant’s temporary child support and equitable distribution payments

from his monthly gross income for child support purposes, in that the Guidelines do 

not permit deductions from a party’s gross income for such payments. See id.; see also 
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Cauble, 133 N.C. App. at 395, 515 S.E.2d at 712. Defendant’s argument to the 

contrary is overruled.

Conclusion

¶ 30 For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its 

discretion in calculating Defendant’s monthly gross income and monthly adjusted 

gross income, and that the trial court provided sufficient findings to support its 

determinations. Accordingly, we affirm the child support order.

AFFIRMED.

Judges DILLON and CARPENTER concur.