How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support? Do not sell your child short because of fear or non-disclosure by your spouse. Call MacLean Law toll free across BC and Alberta to meet with us at any of our 6 offices.
Hiring an aggressive no nonsense family law lawyer like one of the lawyers at MacLean Law can help you get a favourable answer to your question: How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support?
All too often spouses leave money their children desperately need on the table because of Machiavellian schemes by payors who understate their income, hide cash or sadly because unrepresented or unwitting spouses fail to understand a business owner or professional’s tax return is the least accurate proof of their real income.
How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support? Pick up the phone and call 1-877-602-9900
Lorne N. MacLean, QC has just won back to back $24000 plus $90,000 plus combined monthly spousal and child support interim awards. In this blog, rising star, Mandarin speaking associate Susanna Chen, high lights a recent family case where a huge retroactive support award of over a half a million dollars was made. This case made the media because of its large award but we see too many children suffer through procrastination and dishonesty.
It has been long-established that child support is the right of the child, not the parent. Many people may delay or even forego pursuing increased child support given the lack of funds or fear or whatever reason. Courts have the power to order increased child support, retroactively, depending on various factors including the reason for the delay.
So: How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support? The key is really not to let the paying spouse get away with paying too little at the start. Good family lawyers know how to get disclosure, do life style audits, match expenses to income, gross up cash, find the real income a business owner makes.
How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support?
The leading case with respect to retroactive child support is the SCC decision in DBS v SRG, 2006 SCC 37. DBS confirms the legal responsibility of parents to support their children as per their income. The child has a right to increased support payments given a rise in parental income or based on the real income a payor secretly earned:
131 Child support has long been recognized as a crucial obligation that parents owe to their children. Based on this strong foundation, contemporary statutory schemes and jurisprudence have confirmed the legal responsibility of parents to support their children in a way that is commensurate to their income. Combined with an evolving child support paradigm that moves away from a need-based approach, a child’s right to increased support payments given a parental rise in income can be deduced.
132 In the context of retroactive support, this means that a parent will not have fulfilled his/her obligation to his/her children if (s)he does not increase child support payments when his/her income increases significantly. Thus, previous enunciations of the payor parent’s obligations may cease to apply as the circumstances that underlay them continue to change. Once parents are in front of a court with jurisdiction over their dispute, that court will generally have the power to order a retroactive award that enforces the unfulfilled obligations that have accrued over time.
How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support? Hire MacLean Law ASAP 1-877-602-9900
In the recent case of AJD v CD, 2017 BCSC 1559, a mother sought to obtain retroactive child support on the basis that the payor father had concealed his true income and underpaid child support for 12 years. In this case, the nondisclosure of increase in income was found to be blameworthy conduct that warranted the court to make a support award retroactive to 12 years ago, for a total of $522,408.24.
[52] I find that there was a reasonable excuse for the recipient parent failing to make an earlier request for support or variation. She was under the mistaken impression that child support was fixed and could not be varied. She was not aware of the obligation of the spouse to provide financial disclosure nor did the Separation Agreement contain any such written agreement. It was not until the respondent unilaterally reduced child support in half then she sought legal advice. This occurred in 2015 and when she notified the respondent of his obligation at that time, he did not respond.
[55] Justice Bastarache then deals with exceptions to that usual rule at para. 124:
[124] The date when increased support should have been paid, however, will sometimes be a more appropriate date from which the retroactive order should start. This situation can most notably arise where the payor parent engages in blameworthy conduct. Once the payor parent engages in such conduct, there can be no claim that (s)he reasonably believed his/her child’s support entitlement was being met. This will not only be the case where the payor parent intimidates and lies to the recipient parent, but also where (s)he withholds information. Not disclosing a material change in circumstances — including an increase in income that one would expect to alter the amount of child support payable — is itself blameworthy conduct. The presence of such blameworthy conduct will move the presumptive date of retroactivity back to the time when circumstances changed materially. A payor parent cannot use his/her informational advantage to justify his/her deficient child support payments.
[56] It is clear to me that the respondent in this case is guilty of blameworthy conduct in the extreme. He provided misleading information about what his income was at the time the Separation Agreement was entered into in 2003 and he never corrected that misinformation. His income has always been dramatically higher than that which he disclosed in the Separation Agreement.
How Do I Get Vancouver Calgary Retroactive Child Support?
Get The Right Amount. Call MacLean Law Now 1-877-602-9900
If you believe that your ex-spouse is not disclosing his or her true income, or if you just don’t know what they really earn, we can help you and your child obtain the proper child support they are entitled to receive. Be sure to contact us immediately as further delay may be detrimental to your claim.
Why let your child wait for substantial child support? It is both parents’ duty to ensure the best possible outcome for their children. Let us ensure both of you ensure your child grows up to a healthy productive and accountable adult. We think your children deserve the best possible outcome, Don’t you? Call us now at 1-877-602-9900 to get a just result.
