West Virginia Code 48-11-101 – General provisions relating to child support
(a) It is one of the purposes of the Legislature in enacting this chapter to improve and facilitate support enforcement efforts in this state, with the primary goal being to establish and enforce reasonable child support orders and thereby improve opportunities for children. It is the intent of the Legislature that to the extent practicable, the laws of this state should encourage and require a child's parents to meet the obligation of providing that child with adequate food, shelter, clothing, education, and health and child care.
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 48-11-101
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- State: means a state of the United States, or the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See West Virginia Code 48-14-601
(b) When the domestic relations action involves a minor child or children, the court shall require either party to pay child support in the form of periodic installments for the maintenance of the minor children of the parties in accordance with support guidelines promulgated pursuant to article 13-101, et seq., of this chapter. Payments of child support are to be ordinarily made from a party's income, but in cases when the income is not sufficient to adequately provide for those payments, the court may, upon specific findings set forth in the order, order the party required to make those payments to make them from the corpus of his or her separate estate.