GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
Child support has two routes to modification, which is more than most orders get.
Under C.G.S. §46b-86(a), either parent can seek modification on a substantial change since the last order — a meaningful change in income, employment, the children’s needs, or the parenting arrangement.
This one is frequently overlooked. An order can be modified on a showing that it substantially deviates from the child support guidelines, with a rebuttable presumption that a deviation of 15% or more is substantial, and less than 15% is not.
That matters for older orders. Incomes drift, the guidelines themselves change, and an order entered years ago can be well outside what the current guidelines would produce without any single dramatic event having occurred.
This route is unavailable where the court that entered the original order made a specific finding — on the record, or in the written judgment or decision — that applying the guidelines would have been inequitable or inappropriate. Where a judge deliberately departed from the guidelines and said so, the resulting gap is not grounds for modification on this basis. A substantial change in circumstances remains available.
Where a family’s combined income sat above the prior schedule cap, or where the revised income and deduction rules change the calculation, the new edition may support a modification that the old one would not have.
An order remains in force, and arrears accrue at the ordered amount, until the court changes it.
A court may, in its discretion, make a modification retroactive to the date the motion was served on the other party. Not the date you filed, and not the date your circumstances changed. Retroactive relief is discretionary even then.
So the sequence matters: file, serve, then negotiate. Doing it in the other order is expensive.
Rarely the arithmetic. Usually what counts as income — bonuses, overtime, self-employment income after genuine business expenses — and whether a parent’s earning capacity should be used instead of actual earnings.
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How to change a Connecticut custody, child support, or alimony order after judgment — the substantial change standard, and why filing early matters.
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