Child Support Guidelines

Child Support, in both North Carolina and Virginia, is typically decided by guidelines. For families with very high incomes, the guidelines may not apply. While judges do not have to follow the guidelines, they often do. If the judge deviates from the guidelines, an explanation of the legal reasoning is usually provided by the judge.

The most important factors for the guidelines are each parent's income, the cost of daycare for a parent to work, and the cost of health insurance for the child. In Virginia, spousal support received is added into the dependent spouse's income and deducted from the payor's income. In NC, alimony paid between the parties to the child support case is not considered.

If the parents have shared custody or split custody, there are alternate formulas to calculate child support.

"I Want Half, Eddie..."

Any child of the 1980s has heard Eddie Murphy's monologue about divorce. In it the punchline is about a wife who wants half of the assets at divorce.

In both Virginia and in North Carolina, there is a process called Equitable Distribution, where a judge will figure out a fair division of the couple's property and debts. In North Carolina, there is a rebuttable presumption that the parties will share the assets 50/50, but a litigant can allege and argue that a unequal division would be fairer. In Virginia there is no presumption, and the court looks at a list of factors to determine how to divide the assets fairly.

While it is not always the case that the assets and debts which were acquired during the marriage are divided equally between the parties, it is frequently what happens.