Losing a job while paying child support can be a nightmare. With no paycheck, making the child support payment is darn near impossible, and you build up an arrearage as each Friday comes and goes.
If you lose your job, you need to act quickly to ask the court to modify your child support payments. If you do not do this, your obligation continues. But if you file something with the court, the date you file becomes the date your support is modified. In other words, the court can change its order retroactive to the filing date.
Of course, this is all easy for me to say: I know how to file a support modification motion. If you have lost your job, you probably cannot afford to hire an attorney to assist you. To solve this problem, you can file the request yourself. If you want to do so, follow these guidelines:
- Your request has to be in writing and addressed to the court.
- Your request must have your cause number (sometimes called a case number) on it so the clerks can get your request into the right file.
- Your request must be signed by you and state that the facts in the request are true under the penalties for perjury.
- The request should say you request that your support be modified temporarily while you are unemployed, and state the date you became unemployed.
- You must also submit a notice of hearing to the clerk so your co-parent can be notified.
Because this can all be a bit tricky, you may want to check out the self-service forms on the Indiana Supreme Court’s web site.
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