Alex Hunt:
Welcome back to The Texas Family Lawyer Podcast. I'm Alex Hunt of Hunt Law Firm, a family law firm in the greater Houston area. And today I am happy to be joined by Attorney Bri Holcombe.
Bri Holcombe:
Thank you.
Alex Hunt:
Welcome, Bri. So today, our topic is child support, and we're going to talk about the ins and outs of child support, including the new changes in 2025 to the child support guidelines. They've made some big headlines, so we're going to break them down. We're going to talk about what happens if you get behind in your child support, and then how you can get above the guideline child support and how you might be able to qualify. So let's jump right in.
Our first question today is everything that parents need to know about the new 2025 Texas child support guidelines. There have been some major changes, folks might have seen it in the news. Tell us a little bit about what's changed.
Bri Holcombe:
Effective September 1st, 2025, our child support guidelines have changed. So it used to be that an obligor, the person who's obligated to pay child support, would be capped with their net resources. Meaning if they earned above a certain amount, they would not have to pay child support upon that additional amount. Now prior to September 1st, 2025, that amount was $9200. Beginning September 1st, that has changed now. So an obligor who earns more than $11,700 per month, they now are capped. So any earners between 9200 and $11,699, they are just subject to our regular child support guidelines. Their income is not going to be capped for the child support calculations.
Alex Hunt:
So let's give an example. So say you have somebody that makes $300,000 a year. Their net resources, let's say they're going to be around $200,000 a year. Under both of those scenarios, they're going to be hitting the cap. We call it capped child support or max child support. Let's say they have one kid, they're going to be paying 20% of their net resources. With the old calculation and the cap at $9200, they were going to be paying about 1840 per month.
Bri Holcombe:
Correct.
Alex Hunt:
$1840. Now with the increased cap, they're going to be paying $2340. So that is a $500 a month difference, a $6000 a year difference.
Bri Holcombe:
Correct.
Alex Hunt:
And over the course of a child's life, that is significant money.
Bri Holcombe:
Basically, the new cap is what the old cap used to be for two children essentially. So it has jumped quite dramatically.
Alex Hunt:
Tell us a little bit about how this change came to be.
Bri Holcombe:
So every six years, we review our child support guidelines to ensure that we are adjusting child support appropriately based on inflation. Every year, things change, the price of living increases. So in the next six years from now, we're also going to be able to review these guidelines again just to make sure that they are sustainable within the economy that we're at.
Alex Hunt:
And as family law practitioners, we've seen the inflation and we knew that the change was coming, but this is one of the most significant increases that I've certainly ever seen and that has really come down the pike in a very long time. I don't think anybody really thought that it was going to be quite so significant.
So you said that it is a cap on their net resources. So we've got our gross income. Say you've got somebody who's making $200,000 a year, that's not their net resources. What is net resources?
Bri Holcombe:
Net resources is your gross, so that's the amount that you make, minus any taxes that you pay. So that's going to be for Medicare, Social Security, any state taxes if you're employed in another state or any union dues that you may have. That comes out and that gives us our net income.
Alex Hunt:
Okay. So the child support guidelines are applied in nearly every case that we deal with, but there are some scenarios where if there are circumstances where applying the guidelines would be unjust, the court could divert from the guidelines and issue something different.
So the Texas Family Code provides for the fact that these guidelines are going to be applied in most situations. It's going to be presumed to be fair. But there are certain provisions under Chapter 154 of the code that, if the court feels that it would be unjust to apply the guidelines either up or down, they could differentiate from that, they could divert from that a bit.
So let's say that you're a parent that receives child support. You've heard in the news that there's now an increase on the gap. The obligor, the other parent, maybe makes above the cap. What should you do?
Bri Holcombe:
So if that is happening in your case, one, you definitely want to reach out to a family law attorney to make sure that you can review your order. This new guideline will apply to any modifications that come after September 1st. So you don't just automatically get this increase, you have to take some sort of action. So you can reach out to a private family law attorney or you can reach out to the Office of the Attorney General and request a review of your child support.
Alex Hunt:
And a word of warning. The Office of the Attorney General, one of the benefits is that it is free to obligees. It's actually free to obligors if they feel like they need to have a decrease in their child support. The Office of the Attorney General though is representing the state of Texas.
Bri Holcombe:
Correct.
Alex Hunt:
They are not representing you the way that a private attorney would. Also, a private attorney is going to be responsible to you, they're going to be working for you. The Office of the Attorney General, just in my experience, can be a little bit less prompt in getting things activated with the court and getting things accomplished, and a private attorney's going to be able to get things done a lot more promptly and efficiently for you.
Bri Holcombe:
It's a different pace for sure if you have the Attorney General reach out and do it.
Alex Hunt:
Absolutely. So just some closing ideas. The Texas child support law is designed to ensure that children receive adequate support, and so these automatic cost of living adjustments, they happen every six years. As of September 1st, 2025, if you have an order where you were maybe getting the cap, like at 1840 if you have multiple kids, whatever the 20, 25, 30% of that cap is, this is a material and substantial change in circumstances and you would be eligible to have a modification. So I would say to folks that if you want to review your order, get a consultation, you can certainly meet with our office or another private attorney. Show them your order, tell them what's been going on in your case, say that you're getting capped child support and that you wish to go back to court and to get an increase.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
All right. Our next question, Bri, is going to be if you are falling behind in child support, you're the one that's supposed to be paying child support to the other parent, what can you expect in the state of Texas? And unfortunately, Texas is pretty strict and there are quite a few pretty severe consequences associated with not paying your child support. There are things that the parent receiving child support can do to ensure that they get paid, but there's also things that the obligor or the payer can do if they truly can't pay to ensure that they are not held responsible for those consequences.
So the statutory framework for this is in Chapter 157 of the Texas Family Code and there are quite a few possible penalties that an obligor that doesn't pay and that has the ability to pay might have in store for them. So tell us a little bit about what happens in you fall behind.
Bri Holcombe:
Yeah. So first, the mechanism that an individual would use in the event that their obligor fell behind is to first reach out to either a private attorney or to the Attorney General and seek what we call an enforcement. That is essentially an action that says, "This individual is not following the rules, they are not paying their child support."
Now if you are an obligor and you are not paying, you can't just ignore this. You have to take some sort of action because there are consequences. There could be a judgment awarded for the amount of arrears or the amount of child support that you owe. There could be mechanisms that take that a step further, by placing liens on property, by suspending licenses. I've seen hunting licenses suspended and that could affect some obligors. Or even your driver's license.
Alex Hunt:
Or even your professional license.
Bri Holcombe:
Exactly.
Alex Hunt:
As attorneys, dentists, doctors-
Bri Holcombe:
Engineers.
Alex Hunt:
... cosmetology, all of those licenses could be in jeopardy if you don't pay your child support.
Bri Holcombe:
Exactly. Now, those are some little things. I would say the biggest consequence that you may have is jail time. So that is something that is real, people do go to jail for not paying their child support and you want to do everything in your power to avoid that. Because if you go to jail, how then do you work to continue providing and meeting your obligation? You're not, and you're just continually going to have the facts stacked against you and the tab essentially run up.
Alex Hunt:
And the tab keeps running even if you lose your job, if you ignore it, it will keep on running and you will get an arrearage. And eventually, even if the other side doesn't bring an enforcement against you, the Office of the Attorney General could be tracking the amount that you owe.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
They could on their own, even if the other parent doesn't want it, could bring an action against you to try to hold you in contempt of court for not paying. So failing to do anything, say you lose a job, say you're making less money, the worst thing you can do is fail to do anything. If that action comes, the worst thing that you can do is fail to do anything.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
Because if you get served and you're told to go to court on a certain day, and then you don't show up, they don't just give up.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
They issue what's called a capias, which is an arrest warrant, and they send out law enforcement to go and arrest you. And trust me, there have been more cases than I can count where I've seen somebody that has failed to respond to a subpoena or a citation to be in court, and law enforcement finds them, they'll pick them up on a Friday night and you're spending the weekend in jail until you can get in a court on Monday morning. They will bring you in an orange jumpsuit and shackles, and it's not a pleasant experience. You can then potentially try to work out a deal with the Office of the Attorney General or the parent and try to get something worked out, but the last thing you want to do is ignore this.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
There are other consequences, too, like it'll get reported to your credit agencies. If say you're trying to buy a home or trying to get extended some credit for your business, it's going to get reported and it's going to have a lien. And if you get a judgment against you, that's going to be reported as well.
So how can you cure the arrears if you have fallen behind on your child support?
Bri Holcombe:
So the first thing that I would say is, one, you have to take action. I know we're harping on that and it sounds silly, but there are so many people who just fail to do nothing.
Alex Hunt:
Yeah, don't ignore it.
Bri Holcombe:
Please don't ignore it. The most common is just, one, communicating with the other parent. If you lose your job, you need to, one, let that other parent know that you're not just falling behind on your obligation because you don't want to pay. You need to, one, communicate that with them. And two, seek some sort of modification to lessen that financial obligation. You're still going to have to pay support, but it's going to be much difference. You had a job and you were making $70,000 and you went to 0 due to no fault of your own, we can then seek a modification on your behalf to ensure that you are now paying in your appropriate income bracket.
Now what that means is that you can't just say, "Well, I'm never going to work again." You have to still go out, seek some sort of gainful employment. But what we want is proactive-ness, not sitting and doing nothing.
One of the things too I think is very important is to make sure that you're keeping track and being able to show, "Here are all the efforts that I'm doing to find work, to find some sort of replacement for my income." Sitting on the couch and doing nothing is not good enough, you have to be out seeking gainful employment and seeking opportunities in order to provide.
And then lastly, I would say again, you just want to communicate. You want to be involved in the process. You want to show up for the hearing dates when they happen because as you said, there can be a lot of negotiating that happens. Maybe there is a $20,000 arrearage, meaning you owe $20,000, but you can get on a payment plan to help fix that and stop accruing interest. Because any support that you miss and payments you miss, interest will begin accruing and we all know interest can build up over time. So being proactive, being communicative can certainly help lessen that burden.
Alex Hunt:
And if you do find yourself in family court, in an enforcement hearing, there are certain defenses that you would have as well. So the first defense would be probably fairly obvious to folks, it's if, "Well, I actually did pay."
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
Maybe it wasn't documented with the Office of the Attorney General, or whatever other documentation. Maybe the other party is hiding the ball and saying that you didn't actually pay it.
Bri Holcombe:
But you've got Zelle payments to someone.
Alex Hunt:
But you've got Zelle payments, you've got receipts where you've paid the State Disbursement Unit, the state office that handles all the child support payments. Or you've got check images that show that you actually paid it and it was deposited. All of those things will help you deal with that defense.
The other defense that is a little bit trickier is showing that you don't have an ability to pay the child support. And isn't just where you can show up to court and pull out your pockets and say, "I don't have any money on me right now." You've got to show that you have used every effort possible to not only expend all of the money that you've got in an income, you have to use all of the money that you had in your estate. You have to exhaust every possible avenue for getting a loan. You have to do everything feasibly possible including selling stuff, getting loans, taking out credit cards in order to prove that you can't pay.
Bri Holcombe:
Yeah. You can't come into court or come into the child support court in a brand new Mercedes and say, "I can't pay my child support."
Alex Hunt:
Right.
Bri Holcombe:
They're going to know.
Alex Hunt:
So the bottom line here is that there are really serious consequences for not paying child support. So if you are a child support payer, once again, don't ignore it. Take proactive action, modify your child support order up front because if you get an enforcement filed against you and you say, "Well, I lost my job last year," all of that child support obligation is still going to accrue. So you need to get into court as soon as you lose your job or you get a lower salary. And if you are a recipient of child support, know that there are remedies that are available to you that if the other side can pay their child support and they're just choosing not to, that there are things that you can do with the help of a family law attorney or the Office of the Attorney General, and to ensure that you get paid.
Bri Holcombe:
I think it's also important to know too, and you had kind of hit on it earlier, that maybe it's not the other parent who's going after you for child support, but maybe it's the Office of the Attorney General. If you have a child that's on Medicaid, the state has an interest in ensuring that cash medical support is paid. And I have seen obligees, parents who are receiving child support say, "I don't want to go after them," and the state's still saying, "We're going after them for these funds and we're doing everything that we have in our toolbox to ensure that we get paid."
Alex Hunt:
Absolutely. Really important stuff.
All right, our third question, Bri, is how do get above guideline child support in Texas. So we discussed previously that in Texas, the law assumes that the child support guidelines, which are listed out in the Texas Family Code, and you can actually go and put, the person who's paying child support, you can put their income and what they pay in health insurance into the calculator and get an idea under the guidelines of what child support they would be paying.
But sometimes that isn't going to cut it. There's certain circumstances where the guidelines shouldn't apply because it would be unjust and the law provides for that. And maybe it means that there needs to be less child support that is paid by the obligor, or sometimes it means there's more child support that's paid. So tell me a little bit about the key principles that people need to know about going outside of the child support guidelines.
Bri Holcombe:
Yeah. So I think it's important to know that the statute does provide a remedy for above guideline child support. However, in practicality we don't often times see it awarded. So it is one of those battles that you have to make a decision on, "Am I going to go to court and try and win this argument?"
So one of the things that the family code does is it lays out the different reasons why someone could get above guidelines support. Some of the most common are the child's age, their needs, maybe they have special education circumstances or special education requirements. Maybe you've got a child who's 16 and is going to college because they're super smart. It's important to differentiate needs that every child has versus we've got a special set of circumstances. Every child, for the most part, is engaged in some sort of extracurricular activity, but a prodigy looks a little different from your average child who is just doing an activity for fun.
You also have to show a parent's ability to pay. So often times where we see this above guide child support, it's when we have very high income earners, not necessarily someone who's working a regular job. We're seeing obligors who have 200, 300, 400-plus thousand dollars of income each month.
Alex Hunt:
And that's the scenario that I see in my practice, I'm sure that you do as well. The most is somebody that's earning a significant sum and the child has some sort of special needs that necessitates a little bit more money. And often, if there is a large disparity between the income between the payer and the payee, that will also be taking into consideration, especially if the payee is the one that's taking care of the child and the special needs, maybe even they're having to stay home with the child or bring them back-and-forth to different therapies and doctors' appointments. Then child support can help make up that difference to ensure that that child is cared for in the payee's home.
So how to win the above guideline child support award. Well, there's some strategy there, and the first I would say would be documenting everything that would necessitate an above guideline child support award. So that would mean getting receipts, and bills, and diagnoses of all of the different therapies or estimates for therapies, or anything that you are saying requires above guideline child support. And then the strategy would be just linking those expenses and the income of the payee parent, and the ability of the payer to pay to the child's welfare.
Bri Holcombe:
Right.
Alex Hunt:
You won't just get above guideline child support because you've got a payer that is making a lot of money. You have to make the link between the child's welfare and those additional funds. And you would address all of the factors that are laid out in the Texas Family Code, the child's needs, the parents' resources, and then you would present that in court. Hopefully, you would get a mediated settlement agreement or some sort of out of court settlement so you could avoid going to court. But if you can't do that, we certainly are ready and willing and able to go to court to present that argument on our clients' behalf. And if we're representing the payee and it really isn't in the child's best interest, we're ready to defend that as well and show that that link doesn't really exist.
So the bottom line is that above guideline child support in Texas is not typical, but it's possible. You need to have all your ducks in a row, you need to have all of your documentation, you need to have the linkage to the child's welfare, and then you need to make your legal arguments in court. And if it's in the child's best interest, I've certainly seen numerous times where the court has ordered it.
The number one piece of advice that I would have is if you were trying to make an argument like that, you need to have a legal professional on your side that's advocating for you. These are very complex arguments that need to be made and there's a lot of legalese in Chapter 154 of the Family Code. So having an advocate on your side, like our attorneys at Hunt Law Firm, we're experienced in this, we're knowledgeable in Chapter 154 of the Family Code and how to get above guideline child support. Get somebody on your side that's willing to fight for you.
Bri Holcombe:
Yeah.
Alex Hunt:
So, Bri, thank you so much for joining me to discuss the basics of child support, the ins and outs of the new recent changes. It was great seeing you, and I'll see you next time.
Bri Holcombe:
Thanks for having me.