In South Carolina, issues relating to property, children, and support may be resolved by spouses in a marital settlement agreement. You can resolve these issues before beginning a divorce case. By resolving these matters privately, you can avoid the necessity of incurring the enormous expense, stress and uncertainty that is associated with a contested divorce matter. The only issue pertaining to the end of a marriage that cannot be contained in a separation agreement is the divorce itself. If you have already resolved your differences by entering into a marital settlement agreement, you will have an easy and inexpensive divorce that you can obtain with a South Carolina Uncontested Divorce Kit.

Our South Carolina separation agreement forms include detailed, sample provisions for dealing with child support under South Carolina law. In your agreement, you may include an amount of child support that conforms to the presumptive amount of child support payable under the South Carolina Child Support Guidelines. In the alternative, you may agree upon a support amount that deviates from the amount presumptively payable under the South Carolina Support Guidelines. We offer both customized and blank agreements. If you select a customized separation agreement, we prepare a fully customized agreement for you based on information that you provide to us through an online questionnaire. The blank South Carolina separation agreements are less expensive, and available for immediate download in MSWord format.

The South Carolina Child Support Guidelines set forth varying amounts of child support based on whether the parents have a shared custody arrangement or a sole custody arrangement. Shared physical custody means that each parent has visitation with the children overnight for more than 109 overnights each year (30%) and that both parents contribute to the children’s expenses in addition to the payment of support. Shared custody is based on overnights –and is not the same thing as shared/joint legal custody, which refers to decision –making authority of the parents. Where there is shared custody, the amount of child support is less than in situations involving sole custody.

In addition, the parent who maintains medical and dental insurance for the subject child receives a credit for the amount of the health insurance premium attributable to the children. If there are extraordinary medical expenses, the parent who pays for those expenses may receive a credit for the amount actually paid.

If you use our customized separation agreement service, we will calculate the amount of child support payable based on income and other information that you provide to us. If you decide to downloadable a blank South Carolina Separation Agreement, you make those calculations yourself.

You can review the South Carolina Child Support Guidelines and related information about Child Carolina Child Support at the following websites:

http://www.state.sc.us/dss/csed/forms/2006guidelines.pdf
http://www.state.sc.us/dss/csed/calculator.htm