What to Do When Child Support Ends

Hi, I’m Tulsa fathers’ rights attorney Brian Jackson with Dads.Law. Today I want to talk a little bit about child support and how you terminate it when your child has aged out. So typical child support order in Oklahoma will carry your child until the age of 18 or until they graduate from high school or attain the age of 21.

And the way that that’s determined is if they’re in high school, you still have a child support liability unless they attain the age of 21 and are still in high school, in which case the child support liability would cease unless a motion is filed to continue child support into the child’s adulthood, which would be generally in the case of a disability. However, something to be aware of, if you have more than one child that you’re paying child support for, the amount that is paid is not severable. In other words, it’s not like it’s so much to one child or the other. It’s a lump sum.

So if one child ages out, then that same lump sum is still technically due until such a time as you file a motion to modify child support and have it reduced based on one less child. Now if all the children are aged out, arguably you have no further liability provided that the conditions in the order are met for the liability to cease. But in either case, your best bet is to file a motion to terminate child support rather than simply ceasing payment. And the reason is that will cleanly cut it off by having a separate court order where the court finds specifically that you no longer have liability.

Why Filing a Motion to Terminate Child Support Is Important

Without that, there is always the possibility that you could be subject to contempt proceedings to enforce an ongoing payment. So your safest course of action in that situation is to go ahead and file a motion to terminate prospective child support payments, that is the payments that would go forward monthly. And in the case of one child aging out and one child still being a minor, you file to have it adjusted downward based on one less child. That would be a motion to modify child support.

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If you have any questions or need help filing that, you need a good Oklahoma child support lawyer. One place you can find a good lawyer is at Dads.Law where fathers are not disposable.