Man using calculator

Child support overpayments, resulting from the retroactive application of a reduced child support award, may be recouped against future add-on expenses of the children. So held the Appellate Division, First Department, in its March 31, 2022 decision in Castelloe v. Fong.

That decision affirmed an Order of New York County Supreme Court Justice Michael L. Katz, which in turn confirmed the award of a Special Referee.

The appellate court upheld the Referee’s decision to impute $250,000.00 in annual income to the father. The Court also upheld the Referee’s decision to use a $250,000.00 cap to calculate the father’s child support obligation of $3,333.33 per month ($40,000.00 per year), finding that it was sufficient to meet the children’s “actual needs” to live an “appropriate lifestyle.” The trial evidence reflected the parties’ comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyle and that both parties had significant financial resources to support the use of a $250,000 cap.Continue Reading Overpayment Of Child Support May Offset Future Add-on Expenses

Two people fighting over money / business transaction / giving & taking money / shopping / divorce / power struggle / etc.

A decision last week of the Appellate Division, Second Department, points out that the rules concerning the recovery of overpayments of child support may not always be logical, and in the end may not best benefit the children the support was intended to benefit.

The parties in McGovern v. McGovern had executed a stipulation in 2007 that was incorporated but not merged into their judgment of divorce. The stipulation required the father to pay the mother child support each month for the parties’ two children. That obligation was to continue until, as is here relevant, one of the children began attending a residential college, at which point the child support obligation would be reduced. The stipulation also required the father to pay 60% of the children’s educational expenses, but allowed him to deduct any room and board payments which he made from his child support obligation.

In February 2014, the father filed a petition with the Westchester County Family Court seeking a downward modification of his child support obligation on the ground that the older child had started college in September 2011. The father also alleged that from September 2011 to February 2014, he overpaid child support because the Support Collection Unit failed to reduce his child support payments after the oldest child started college. As a result, the father requested an overpayment credit towards his child support obligation.Continue Reading Recoupment of Child Support Overpayments From Add-on Expenses (College); Not Future Support