Understanding Retroactive Child Support

Divorce courts will sometimes order non-custodial parents to pay retroactive child support payments. A retroactive child support payment refers to payments for child support costs incurred before the child support agreement was reached.

In most cases, this means paying child support for the weeks or months during which the custodial parent supported the child or children before an agreement was reached. In the case of couples who are not married at the time of a child's birth, retroactive child support payments can go back as far as the day the child was born. In fact, non-custodial parents might even be required to make payments toward the mother's prenatal or postnatal expenses not covered by health insurance.

A court will not always order retroactive child support, so it is important to act expediently when seeking child support. The longer custodial parent waits to ask for child support, the less likely it is that retroactive support will be granted.

To learn more about retroactive child support and whether you might be entitled to retroactive payments from your ex, contact Claery & Green today to get representation from a Los Angeles family law attorney.