Section 24 of the Arizona Child Support Guidelines addresses modifications of child support, with Subsection A addressing the “Standard Procedure” and Subsection B outlining the “Simplified Procedure.” Maybe I’m the only one who finds this humorous, but the Standard Procedure is covered in one sentence of under 40 words, while the Simplified Procedure explanation is about ten times longer. So is the Simplified Procedure really simple? Unless the father and mother both agree to the support modification, the answer is NO.
Under the Simplified Procedure, using forms produced by the Clerk of the Superior Court and available online, a person seeking to modify a child support order may fairly easily file initial support modification documents with the court. Once the modification papers are properly filed with the court, they must be served on the other parent. The other parent then has 20 days within which to oppose the modification and request a hearing. If no hearing request is filed, the requested modification will be granted. If the other parent requests a hearing, however, the “simple” part of the Simplified Procedure is over.
Once a hearing has been timely requested, the court will set a support modification conference, which is essentially a mediation session with a court employee — not the judicial officer. All essential evidence must be brought to the conference, and if the parties fail to agree in mediation, they are whisked upstairs to a courtroom for an immediate hearing in front of a court commissioner, who listens to the evidence and makes a ruling. In sum, if a child support modification case goes to the hearing stage, the Simplified Process hearing is just as significant and complicated as a hearing scheduled via the Standard Procedure; there’s nothing “simple” about it.
Copyright © 2011 by Scoresby Family Law – J. Kyle Scoresby, P.C. All rights reserved.
