Does Child Support Have Restrictions on How it Needs to be Used?

What should child support be used to pay for? Here’s the thing about child support. Once child support gets into the hands of the person that it’s supposed to get into the hands of, which is by the way, is the former spouse not the child, all right, that former spouse has complete leeway to use that child support for whatever is necessary.

You can’t impose your particular will, I guess you’d say, on how that child support is used. You really can’t. I think that where the power is is making sure child support is appropriate and it’s the formulas being used appropriately and the amount is the right amount but once that money is into the hands of the person, you don’t have anything more to say about where that money goes. It seems unfair, I think, a little, but it really is the law.

This comes up a lot when people have kids that have gone college. Child support only goes to the age of 19 here in Colorado but a lot of kids are in their first year of college between 18 and 19 and so the child may be out of the house, at college and the spouse is getting the child support. The spouse can do what they want with that child support. They’re keeping a house, they’re making sure there’s a home for the child to come back to. They don’t have to send that money to the child in college, they don’t have to do that.

Although it may seem unfair, you really don’t have any legal rights once that money has gotten into the hands of the former spouse. If you have any further questions about child support, please contact us at (303) 329-3802.