Difference between revisions of "Child Support"

The ''[[Family Law Act]]'' says that stepparents can be responsible for paying child support just as biological and adoptive parents are responsible for paying child support. This has meant that in some cases, multiple people who meet the act's definitions of ''parent'' and ''stepparent'' can be responsible for paying child support for the same child at the same time. In fact, there are a few cases in which parents have engaged in a number of long-term relationships, each of which were long enough to attract a child support obligation from the successive partners of those parents.

A 2004 case of the British Columbia Supreme Court, ''[http://canlii.ca/t/1gfqg H.J.H. v. N.H.H.]'', 2004 BCSC 179, a case decided under the old ''Family Relations Act'', offers some guidance for stepparents trying to stick-handle around this issue. In this case, the parties had been married for less than three years when they separated. Each had been previously married, and the problem centred around the wife's child from a previous relationship and whether the husband should have to support the child. The court found that the husband, who qualified as a stepparent under the act, was not responsible for paying support, because of the combined effect of the following factors: