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I am a stepfather of an adopted child. I am however divorced at this point from the natural mother. I still do all the things a divorced father does ie: child support, baseball, reading, homework, ect.. ect.. when I have visitation. The issue I'm having is that the natural father had passed away before my son was born. So my childs natural mother receives Social Security for my son. My Ex wife receives this money to support and raise our son, but I still pay full child support that the state ordered. I just don't see how this is fair that she gets 2 fathers to support 1 child. I believe that the fathers Social Security should help both parents support the child. Any advice?
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Yes I did adopt him. And yes I have already cleared that with the Social Security Administration. He is entitled to it as a benefit of his fathers. My only issue is that in all fairness I should be able to claim half of that since I am a parent supporting him to assist in raising him. The state says I owe 985 for two children but in effect she receives 1491. A payment from me and a payment from birth father. Thank you for your response.
My understanding of the child support laws are that the child, after a divorce, is still entitiled to a similar standard of living to what the child had before the divorce. (Or as close as possible to it, it's almost impossible to actually match it.) So since mom received the SS payments before the divorce, they were part of the childs standard of living then. So that money and where it comes from plays no part in deciding how much money you will pay in child support. If she never received that SS payment before, and only started receiving it after the divorce, then you might have a case for the children actually being better off after the divorce than before, and use that as basis for asking that your payments be reduced. Same as if the mother got a much better job, you might be able to use that as basis for asking that your payments be reduced, too. But I've never heard of a SS payment being split between two people before. Each payment needs a payee, which in this case is the children's mother. Perhaps since there are two children there may be the ability to split the payment in half and send each half to a different payee, I don't know. But keep in mind that if YOU start receiving something that the person who has legal and physical custody of the children used to receive, chances are your child support would go UP, not down. Make sense?
The money from the bio father is a survivor's benefit, automatically given to minor children after the death of a parent who has worked and paid into Social Security. It goes to your ex-wife simply because they are minors and can't manage their own affairs; she has to account for the benefit separately from her own when she files taxes, etc.. Your ex-wife probably also gets a survivor's benefit. The court determines your child support expectations based on the ability of both you and your ex-wife to support your child. In general, Social Security survivor benefits from a previous spouse benefits aren't factored in. However, you may want to check that out with a lawyer. If Social Security benefits from a previous spouse CAN be added in, then your lawyer can request a renegotiation of the child support payments. Sharon