All parents have a legal responsibility to support their dependent children to the extent that they can. A parent with custody usually has most of the day-to-day expenses of child-raising, and may be entitled to receive child support from the other parent.

This entitlement to child support may continue even if the custodial parent remarries or starts to live with someone else.

The amount of child support is usually set according to the Child Support Guidelines.

More than one parent can have a legal duty to pay child support for the same child. For example, if a parent with custody of a child separates from their marriage or common-law spouse who is not the child’s birth parent, both the child’s other birth parent and the step-parent may have a legal duty to pay child support.

A biological father has a legal duty to support his child financially even if he has never been married to, or lived with, the child’s mother. This is true even if he never had an ongoing relationship with the mother. If a man denies that he is the biological father of a child, the court can order him to have a blood test to determine whether or not he is.

At Russell Alexander, Family Lawyers our focus is exclusively family law. To find out more about our services, we invite you to contact us or call the firm at 1.866.647.6335