Source: https://www.divorceny.com/category/child-support/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 23:01:07+00:00

Document:
It is common for the parents of young children when entering a divorce settlement agreement to defer until the children approach college age the determination of the parents’ obligations to contribute. The language chosen to express that deferral may be significant.
The recent decision of the Appellate Division, Second Department, in Conroy v. Hacker, lets us know the agreement language is significant. But we are left asking what would have happened without it.
The parties are not making any specific provisions for the payment of college expenses which may be incurred on behalf of the infant children because of the tender age of said children as of the date of this Agreement. The parties do, however, acknowledge an obligation on each of their parts to contribute to the children’s future college expenses in accordance with their financial abilities at that time.
Two recent decisions of the Appellate Division, Second Department, have upheld maintaining a father’s child support obligations despite alleged changes to the nature of the relationship with the child.
in Lovaglio v. Wagner, the father contended that the parties’ then 20-year-old daughter had moved in with him when she entered college. Previously, the daughter resided with the mother in New Jersey since she was 5 years old. However, the father claimed that she began residing with him full-time in Brooklyn after she enrolled in a college in Manhattan during the winter 2015 semester.
After a hearing, Support Magistrate John M. Fasone held that the father failed to establish that the daughter’s residence had changed and denied the father’s petitions to terminate his child support obligation and to receive child support from the mother. In its November 22, 2017 decision, the Second Department affirmed the order of Kings County Family Court Judge Judith Waksberg that had denied the father’s objections to Magistrate Fasone’s order.
The parties were married in May 1993, and had two now-emancipated children. The father had been a successful diamond dealer and jeweler; the mother was a homemaker and caretaker of the children. In 2002, the parties divorced under a judgment that had incorporated a Separation Agreement. The father was to pay child support of $4,004.60 per month, as well as the children’s insurance, tuition and other educational expenses.
The father complied with his child support obligations until 2008 when he was arrested for fraud in “massive gem heists.” He was incarcerated between 2008 and 2011. Upon his release in May, 2011 until May 2014, the father apparently cooperated with the United States government and was purportedly placed in a safe house by the U.S. Witness Protection Program, under which he had assumed a new identity in another state.
In its July 5, 2017 decision in Decillis v. Decillis, the Appellate Division, Second Department, recognized, but significantly reduced a credit against a formula child support obligation for the father’s extraordinary visitation travel expenses.
The parties were the parents of a child born in 2003. The mother filed a petition for child support. After imputing annual income of $43,000 to the mother, Suffolk County Family Court Support Magistrate Kathryn L. Coward determined that the father’s formula basic child support obligation would be $572 biweekly (grosses up to income of $94,729 per year). However, after gaving the father a $168 biweekly credit to compensate him for the “extraordinary” expenses associated with visitation, the Magistrate directed him to pay child support in the sum of $404 biweekly.
The Second Department first found that the Support Magistrate properly imputed $43,000 of income to the mother based upon her prior income, her choice to engage in only part-time employment, and her current living arrangement, in which she did not pay rent or related housing expenses.
However, the appellate court found that the Support Magistrate improvidently exercised its discretion in awarding the father a $168 credit against his child support obligation $168 for the “extraordinary” expenses associated with visitation, including $67 for travel expenses.
In a recent decision of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, in Holeck v. Beyel, 145 A.D.3d 1600, 43 N.Y.S.2d 816, the court upheld a direction to a disabled father (the non-custodial parent) to apply to the Social Security Administration to change representative payee of the children’s social security disability (SSD) benefits from the father to the custodial mother. The appellate court also upheld the denial of the father’s request for a reduction in his support obligation by virtue of his loss of the SSD benefits for the children.
Generally, when a disabled parent is qualified for Social Security disability benefits, the children may also qualify to receive benefits on the disabled parent’s work-record. Eligible children can be a biological, adopted or stepchildren. Normally, benefits stop when the child reaches age 18 unless they are disabled. However, if the child at age 18 is still a full-time student at a secondary (or elementary) school, benefits will continue until the child graduates or until two months after the child becomes age 19, whichever is first.
It appears that the tremendous burden placed on the Appellate Division, Second Department, to work through its caseload has often led to opinions which leave you wanting to know a little more of the facts so you can put the case into perspective.
Take the the Second Department’s May 31, 2017 decision in Fiore v. Fiore, where the lower court’s opinion was modified to increase a father’s college obligation and which determined summer camp to be the equivalent of child care.
After nine years of marriage and one child, the parties settled their divorce action by an amended agreement that was incorporated into their 2000 Judgment of Divorce. Included among the settlement’s provisions were that the father would pay $12,289 annually for basic child support; that the parents would each pay their pro rata share of unreimbursed medical expenses; and that the father would pay 58% of the cost of day care.
In 2014, the mother moved for upward modification of basic child support, and other child support-related relief, including contribution toward the child’s summer camp and college expenses. Supreme Court, Nassau County Justice Julianne T. Capetola denied the upward modification, denied summer camp expenses, and limited the father’s obligation to pay college expenses to $5,000 per semester.
On appeal, the Second Department upheld the denial of an increase in the basic child support obligation. The mother had failed to meet her burden of proving that there had been a substantial, unanticipated, and unreasonable change in circumstances resulting in a concomitant need, or that the settlement was not fair and equitable when entered into. This was the required burden as the amended stipulation of settlement was entered prior to the effective date of the 2010 amendments to Domestic Relations Law §236(B)(9)(b)(2), when the burden was lessened.
Do Student Loans Reduce a Parent’s College Support Obligation?
Whether by agreement or court decree, it is common for divorced parents to be obligated to contributed to their child’s college education tuition, room and board expenses. How is that obligation computed when a child receives financial aid?
The divorced couple’s child moved out of the mother’s home when he was 18, established his own residence, and began paying for all of his own expenses. Thereafter, the father’s petition to terminate his support obligations was granted.
Under what circumstances may a step-parent’s income and assets be considered by a court when deciding whether awarding the formula amount of support would be unjust or inappropriate? When may a court deviate from the formula because of a parent’s obligation to support the children of another relationship?
These were the issues discussed by the Appellate Division, Second Department, in its April 5, 2017 decision in Hall v. Pancho.
The parties, who were never married, had one child in common, age 11. After a hearing to determine the amount of the father’s modified child support obligation, Nassau County Family Court Support Magistrate Elizabeth A. Bloom found that were the formula set forth in the Child Support Standards Act (the CSSA) to be applied, the father’s pro rata share of the basic child support obligation would have been biweekly payments in the sum of $839.76. The father argued that the full formula should not be awarded because of his need to support the children of his marriage. Magistrate Bloom apparently agreed, deviating downward from the CSSA formula and determining the father’s child support obligation would be $425.00 biweekly. The mother filed objections to the Support Magistrate’s order, which were subsequently denied by Family Court Judge Thomas A. Rademaker. The mother appealed.
A decision last week of the Appellate Division, Second Department, points out that the rules concerning the recovery of overpayments of child support may not always be logical, and in the end may not best benefit the children the support was intended to benefit.
The parties in McGovern v. McGovern had executed a stipulation in 2007 that was incorporated but not merged into their judgment of divorce. The stipulation required the father to pay the mother child support each month for the parties’ two children. That obligation was to continue until, as is here relevant, one of the children began attending a residential college, at which point the child support obligation would be reduced. The stipulation also required the father to pay 60% of the children’s educational expenses, but allowed him to deduct any room and board payments which he made from his child support obligation.
In February 2014, the father filed a petition with the Westchester County Family Court seeking a downward modification of his child support obligation on the ground that the older child had started college in September 2011. The father also alleged that from September 2011 to February 2014, he overpaid child support because the Support Collection Unit failed to reduce his child support payments after the oldest child started college. As a result, the father requested an overpayment credit towards his child support obligation.

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