Child Support

Child support is the amount of money that the court orders one parent to pay the other parent every month for the support of the child(ren). California has a formula (called a "guideline") for figuring out how much child support should be paid in all cases.

Child support payments are usually made until children turn 18, or 19 if they are still in high school full time, living at home, and can't support themselves. Parents may agree to support a child longer. The court may also order that both parents continue to support a disabled adult child that is not self-supporting.

You can ask the judge to make a child support order when you:

• Get a divorce, legal separation, or annulment
• Establish parentage; or
• Get a domestic violence restraining order.

Spousal Support

When a couple separates or divorces, the court may order one spouse to pay the other a certain amount of support money each month. This is called "spousal support."

The judge will take many things into consideration when deciding what spousal support should be ordered. Examples of some things the judge may consider are:

• How long the couple has been married;
• The age and health of each spouse;
• How much income each can earn on their own;
• What the expenses of each spouse are;
• Whether there are minor children at home; and
• The history of the way the couple handled money during the marriage.

You can ask for spousal or partner support to be paid while your case is going on. This is called a "temporary spousal support order" or a "temporary partner support order." Many counties have formulas for calculating the amount of a temporary spousal or partner support order.

The judge will not use a formula to figure out how much spousal or partner support to order at the end of your case (called the "final judgment").

When the judge makes his or her final order, the judge must consider the factors in California Family Code section 4320.

These factors are:

• The length of the marriage or domestic partnership,
• What each person needs,
• What each person pays or can pay (including earnings and earning capacity),
• Whether having a job would make it too hard to take care of the child(ren),
• The age and health of both people,
• Debts and property,
• Whether one spouse or domestic partner helped the other get an education, training, career, or professional license,
• Whether there was domestic violence in the marriage or domestic partnership,
• Whether one spouse's, or domestic partner's, career was affected by unemployment, or by taking care of the children or home, and
• The tax impact of spousal support (note: federal and state tax laws were not changed to recognize domestic partnerships.)

Content supplied by the California Courts Self Help Center