Phoenix Arizona Family Law Blog

Generally, a child support payment is based on how much a noncustodial parent earns. The goal when crafting a child support order is to ensure that the child's needs are met. However, if parents in Arizona experience a job loss or other financial hardship, it's possible to ask for to have a child support order modified. The order can be modified either temporarily or permanently depending on the reason for a parent's financial hardship.

In some cases, the parents themselves will negotiate a change to a child support order on their own. In most cases, a court will approve any agreement that parents create between themselves assuming that they are reasonably close to state guidelines. Those who are seeking a modification in court must typically file a motion and then alert the other parent of the pending legal action.

Arizona parents who are not a couple but will be co-parenting their children might at first struggle with making it work smoothly, healthily and productively. However, there are many ways they can reflect and see if their co-parenting relationship is working well.

One way to measure how productively the co-parenting relationship is going is by looking at the communication between the parents. Parents who can talk openly about their children is a good indicator that things are going well. Agreeing in the important things related to raising children, such as decisions involving the children's healthcare, education, discipline and religious upbringing, can be sign that things are going well.

Many Arizona fathers may be concerned about their rights to their children, especially if they are not married to the mother and never were. In many cases, unmarried fathers remain in a committed partnership with the mother of the child; they simply choose not to marry. Statistics show that around 40% of all kids are born to parents that are not married. In other cases, the parents have ended their romantic relationship but co-parent the child like a divorced couple. However, when no marriage exists, fathers may have to take additional steps in order to protect their rights and ensure that the parent-child relationship is enshrined in law.

When the parents of a child are not married, paternity must be legally established. This is true even when both parents are in a long-term relationship, live together and share a home. In most cases like this, the father's name will be placed on the birth certificate from the very beginning by the mother when she fills out paperwork. A father can also file a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity in case the information is not included in the birth certificate for some reasons. When the parents' relationship is more contested, the mother may reject the claim of paternity. A paternity test can clearly establish the father's identity.

Cryptocurrency emerged as a new form of asset in 2009 with the development of Bitcoin. This digital currency often creates difficulties during divorces. Cryptocurrency by its design can be hard to trace, which forms an opportunity for a spouse in Arizona to hide the asset. The values of various cryptocurrencies fluctuate as well. Pinning down the value of a cryptocurrency asset for the purposes of the divorce settlement can be challenging.

Investigators have the ability to track down cryptocurrency holdings when people buy them through online exchanges. A forensic accountant might locate the original money in a bank account that was transferred to the cryptocurrency transaction. Direct purchases of cryptocurrency without the involvement of an online exchange require much greater investigative efforts to find. A person caught attempting to hide cryptocurrency assets during a divorce might lose a portion of the divorce settlement or potentially face jail time because hiding assets is a form of contempt of court.