Family Law Blog

Effective on September 1, 2021, the Texas Family Code has a new statute that requires the department (aka, "CPS") to give a preference to certain persons when making a placement decision for a child. Here it is:

Now, this isn't exactly "new". The fact that it is now in the Texas Family Code is new; however, this prioritization list is the method that CPS has been operating off of for years. CPS has their own policies that they must follow in addition the statutes in the Texas Family Code. CPS has always prioritized placements in this regard. Still, there is a bit of ambiguity here (just like ...

One of the new changes to the Texas Family Code in 2021 is that now there is a new "low-income child support guidelines" in Section 154.125. This new section only applies to lawsuits filed after September 1, 2021. The person paying child support must be earning less than $1,000 in order for the court to "presumptively apply" the new figures.

So what are the new figures? Here is a comparison of normal vs. the new low-income numbers:

As you can see, all of the numbers reduce by 5% when a wage earner is "low income". Keep in mind that the low-income threshold of $1,000 is for "net resources", which is ...