Simple Divorce Papers

In 1997 federal government passed legislation which set up mandatory child support guidelines. As a part of these guidelines there are tables  which state the amount of child support which is appropriate based on the following three factors:

1. The gross annual income of the parent who will be paying child support;
2. The province in which a parent resides; and,
3. The number of children for whom child-support will be paid.

The Divorce Act gives the court the power to insist upon compliance with the child support guidelines before granting a divorce. Therefore, when applying for divorce it is important that your child support arrangements comply with the guidelines or else you provide the court with a very good reason why your children are actually better off by an arrangement which does not comply with the guidelines.

An example of a situation where a court may accept noncompliance would be if the custodial parent received a larger share of the matrimonial property in exchange for accepting lower child support payments. The rationale here would be that, for example, if the custodial parent became the sole owner of the matrimonial home that would free up money that would otherwise have to be spent on rent or mortgage payments to provide for the children’s financial needs.

Another situation where an exception is often permitted is when the parents have agreed on a shared parenting arrangement. The definition of shared parenting is that the children spent roughly equal amounts of their time in the care of each parent. There can be a slight difference in the amount of time but no more than a 60/40 split. In other words, if the children spend 70% of their time with one parent and 30% with the other it is not considered shared parenting.

Another situation where an exception can be made is if the spouse who should be paying support can show the court that paying the table amount of child support would impose an undue hardship. This is rather difficult to prove as it requires that the paying spouse show that the standard of living in his or her household is lower than the standard of living in the other spouse’s household. Even when this is shown, there still has to be evidence that paying the table amount imposes an undue hardship on the paying spouse. Sometimes the cost of travel for access visits can justify a reduction in child support, especially where the custodial parent has relocated the children far away from the other parent for dubious reasons.