Hope for those of you with a sneaky BM or BD
6 years ago my husband and his ex had a court order established that stated he had to pay a certain amount each month, which was to include childcare. Despite telling the judge that it should be paid directly by him to the daycare instead of to BM so that he would be aware of cost changes, the judge made it a mandatory add-on. As he predicted, BM failed to let him know when changes were made or to show him statements when he requested them, and we don't actually know when the youngest fully stopped attending. Fast forward to last year, BM got pissed off because my husband asked for a receipt for something. She took action to enforce the "order," claiming he doesn't pay the full amount. He's been paying her a negotiated amount based on what we know about how much she makes, what he makes, that both households have a new spouse and new child from new marriages, and that the oldest has been out of childcare for five years. Youngest had been out for at least two years-possibly 2.5. The enforcement agency told DH he had to pay x amount, which is was the order said-but the order failed to spell out that childcare was part of that order as a mandatory add on. We requested the court transcripts and low and behold it is spelled out in black and white in multiple cases- and straight from her former lawyer's mouth (lol) that childcare is part of the figure stated in the order. We shared the transcripts with our local agency and let's just say someone is going to be very unpleasantly surprised when they find out how much less they'll be getting. That sure backfired! We may even be taking further action given that we've been paying far more than we needed to for some time-not even because we need it, but to put this narcissist in her place and stop her games. There will be a modification soon based on all the new circumstances and we are fine with whatever amount it is because he is a good dad and he doesn't mind paying to take care of his kids. The issue here was the principle.
Just wanted to share for those of you that might find yourselves with a vague order and a sneaky, greedy BM or BD who doesn't care about the standard of living for their bio kids despite what house they might be at. If you have transcripts that spell out details that aren't in the verbiage of the order, you may be able to save yourself a headache. The transcripts are expensive but not as expensive as not taking action to put narcissistic exes in their place.
Yes, good. You shouldn't be
Yes, good. You shouldn't be overpaying, and in my experience, court is pretty cut and dry about money. If you can prove your are overpaying because child care has changed, then they will change it.
We had our version of your
We had our version of your experience regarding the NCP's share of child care being added directly to CS. When that was ordered the Judge told both parties that when the Skid aged out of needing daycare (at 12yo) that either party could petition the court to end that portion of CS. My DW is the CP. We of course never said a word. Neither did the SpermClan. So, they kept paying it for 6 more years. They have no clue they overpayed. But... no one in the SpermClan ever read the CO. We knew it forwards, backwards, inside out and upside down. We also knew the supplmental county rules for the jurisdiction where the CO was issued, and we knew the state regulations. We had copies of all three of those documents in our home office and at each of our company offices. Any time they tried to pull any crap, we were nose deep in the docs. When the CO ended when SS-28 turned 18 we called our killer shark attorney and asked about the overpayment of CS due to the 6 additional years of child care expenses. Our attorney said that unless we brought it up there was about zero chance it would ever come up and if the SpermClan brought it up after the CO expired that the family court would not hear it and would tell the SpermClan to take it to small claims court. Meanwhile 10+ years later and back at the ranch.... it has never come up. The only people who likely even know about it are my DW, myself, and our lawyer. If they ever did try to go after it in court we would counter sue and offer to deduct it from their half of medical expenses not covered by insurance once they had provided secure payment for the $10K they still owe us, and we still invoice them for twice a year with penalties and interest applied. Their overpayment over that six years came to a total of $1080.
Your superior knowledge is a great advantage.
Use it.
It is great that you are getting this part of your CS obligation lowered. However, do not count on your attempt to recoup overpayment being successful. Though in your case if the youngest Skid still has some years until they age out from under the CS order, you be successful in having CS reduced even more for the duration of the CS period to recover your over payment.
Good luck.