There is one piece of advice that I give out at least once a week. It's about "effective notice".
When it comes to child support and/or special expenses, the concept of effective notice has become very important. The custodial parent wants child support, an increase to child support or help with special expenses. More and more, Judges want to know when they gave the non-custodial parent effective notice of that request. Unless it was given, many Judges take the position that the other parent can safely assume they have no obligation.
Some examples:
- parents separate but continue sharing expenses the way they were before - splitting the mortgage payments, hydro bill, Visa, daycare, clothing and supplies for the children. At some point, the custodial parent (or lower income parent in a shared custody situation) may decide they would rather pay their own bills and receive child support. They should give effective notice of this to the other parent.
- one parent has been paying child support in the same amount for years. The other parent would like to review the payer's income and the child support amount to see if it's still accurate. They need to request the financial information and give effective notice that they would like a proper amount of child support to be paid.
- a teenager changes their schedule from full-time with one parent to equal time with both parents. The payor parent should give effective notice that he or she will be seeking a change to the support amount.
- the custodial parent enrols the child in daycare, incurring a new, shareable expense. He or she needs to give the other parent notice of the new expense, with details of the cost and their own income to determine each parent's share of the expense
Effective notice almost always means that it must be in writing, and clearly worded. It can be as formal as a registered letter, or as informal as an email.
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