Wed 12 Jul 2006
Late yesterday afternoon, I was going through some divorce cases when I came upon one that was mostly done correctly, which was impressive because neither side had an attorney, altho it was clear that a paralegal was involved in the paperwork. It was also impressive because there are 2 minors involved in the marriage, and when there are kids, the requirements increase and get more stringent.
The only thing wrong with this paperwork was that altho they had agreed to $450/month of child support that the father is to pay to the mother upon finalizing the divorce, they didn’t specify how much of this $450 pertains to the 8 year-old and to the 7 year-old. Because one kid will reach age 18 before the other one, I don’t want a situation where the father decides that he intended $440 to be for the older kid and now that the older kid’s support expired, he was only gonna pay the mother $10/month for the younger kid.
I decided to be a nice person and call the petitioner (who happens to be the mother) and ask her what the breakdown is per child and I could just write it in myself, initial it with the notation that the information was given to me over the phone, instead of rejecting the entire divorce packet and mailing it back, thereby causing a huge delay in processing and she’d have to go back to the paralegal who typed up all her paperwork and have it redone, and then mail the whole thing back to me and it’d be behind all the other divorce cases I received before her correction came back. Here’s how that phone call went.
Female voice (with screaming kid in background): Hello?
Me: Hello, may I speak to Isabel, please?
Female: Isabel not here!
Me: Okay, may I leave a message for Isabel, please?
*CLICK* What the –? Oh, no, she did NOT just hang up on me —
*CLICK* (screaming kid again in background) Oh, maybe she just dropped the phone or something)
Me: Hello?
*CLICK*
APPARENTLY she tried to hang up the first time, picked up to check to make sure it was hung up, realized it didn’t hang up, and then hung up on me AGAIN! I am SO rejecting this divorce packet. I should hold it for a month and THEN reject it, but I’m not, I’m just gonna reject it today. I don’t know whether it was Isabel I was talking to or not, but if you’re not going to do anything with phone calls, don’t pick up the damn phone!
First of all.. $450 a month for 2 kids!! Yowza.. he must work at McDonalds. I’m not sure about Cali.. but in other states, every three years you can petition for a COL change in the child support amount (increase or decrease) either party. I didn’t know they had to allot an amount per child.. I guess I never paid much attention to mine. I suppose their amount is $225 per child, non-stated. I almost fell off my chair when I saw that my ex husband was paying $2500 per month (for 2 kids), which is what they agreed on prior to the finalization. Apparently it would have been more had they done the proper calculations.
Maybe the person that hung up on you was Isabel’s nanny? haha
I have never seen $2500/month child support! Maybe that’s cuz I work where I work. A lot of people DO work at McDonald’s. Those whose baseline child support would be that high are probably fighting it in a family law court, and therefore their file would never get to me.
That’s a manhattan attorney for ya…his ex made off pretty well.