California Child Support
California child support is administered by the Department of Child Support Services which in turn comes under the California Health and Human Services Agency.
California child support is calculated based on the California child support guidelines laid down by the legislature in California. You can access a California child support calculator on the website of the Department of Child Support Services but the calculation of child support will be based on the net disposable income of each parent and the amount of time each parent cares for the child.
California Child Support Calculator
Ultimately the Family Law Judge or Court Commissioner will have the ultimate say as to what each parent’s child support obligations will be and the calculator can only provide a rough estimate. You can check out the California child support calculator booklet elsewhere on this site and it will guide you through the use of the calculator.
Under the umbrella of the Department of Child Support services in California are 52 local child support agencies and they provide the following free services to the public-
- Establishing paternity
- Finding a parent
- Obtaining or modifying a child support order
- Obtaining and enforcing a cour order for health insurance coverage.
To access any of these child support services you simply fill out a form online and contact your local child support agency office. You can also apply in person at the office.
You can also make or receive child support payments online and report fraud and obtain public records which is provided or under the Constitution of California and the Public Records Act. You must make your request in writing for a specific public record and not attempt to do a trawl of the records. The Office of Legal Services provide this service and you can generally get your copy of the record within 10 days and there is a copying charge of 10 cents per page.
You can apply online for the various California child support services in a number of languages including English, Vietnamese, Spanish, Armenian, Chinese, Russian and Hmong.
California Child Support Handbooks
The website of the Department of Child Support also provide a number of really useful child support handbooks which you can download for free including
- Information for the non custodial parent
- Obtaining a child support order
- Commencing a child support case and many others which are very informative and written in plain English (but also translated to all the other languages mentioned above).
If you are concerned about California child support there is no excuse for informing yourself with the many free resources on the website provided by the Department of Child Support in California.
Related posts:
Filed under Child Custody Laws In The United States, Child Support Calculator by Terry
