Tier 4 · Change It · $249
The Support Modification Kit, opened up.
Most fathers never test the number they are paying, because nobody ever told them two things: what their state’s rule for changing support actually says, and how retroactivity works in their state. The Kit answers both in four steps, for your state, with the citation on each one. Below is Florida’s, in specimen. All fifty-one are built the same way.
The four steps
Specimen — Florida
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Step 01 — your state’s threshold
When can support be changed?
In Florida the gap between what your order says and what the guideline says has to be at least 15% or $50, whichever is greater. Under that, the statutory threshold is not met.
Unless your case runs through the Department of Revenue. There the threshold is 10% but not less than $25 — and the Department must seek the change without any showing of changed circumstances at all. Two different doors, two different thresholds, and most fathers have only ever been told about the harder one.
Fla. Stat. § 61.30(1)(b); § 61.14(1)(c)
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Step 02 — the retroactivity clock
How retroactivity works in your state
Florida is a filing state. A change can reach back to the day you filed the supplemental petition — and no earlier. Filing is what stops the clock. Not hiring anyone, not the hearing, not the day your income actually changed. Filing.
Worked example
Your order says $1,500 / month The guideline says $1,100 / month Gap $400 / month Gap over six months $2,400 An illustration, not your case. The Kit runs it on your own two numbers.
Said plainly, because it is the whole point: anything overpaid before the filing date is not recoverable. Retroactivity is also discretionary — the statute says the court may modify — so an earlier filing date preserves more of the claim, but does not secure it.
Fla. Stat. § 61.14(1)(a)
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Step 03 — the routes your state offers
Court, or the agency?
Florida has two routes and they are not interchangeable. The Department of Revenue reviews support orders in Title IV-D cases and can modify its own administrative orders itself. If your order came from a circuit court judge, the Department cannot change it — it has to go back to that court.
So the first question is not “how do I file?” It is which kind of order do you actually have? The two routes lead to different places, and that answer is what decides which one applies. If you are in a IV-D case, the Department reviews on request on the federal cadence — at least every 36 months.
Fla. Stat. § 61.14(1)(c), citing § 409.2564(11)
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Step 04 — the filing checklist
What goes in, and in what order
The petition is Florida Supreme Court Approved Family Law Form 12.905(b), the Supplemental Petition for Modification of Child Support. It is filed in the circuit court that entered the original order — not the county you live in now — and the other parent is then served.
Florida’s mandatory-disclosure rules require a financial affidavit and a child support guidelines worksheet alongside it. Their form numbers change, so the Kit sends you to the current list rather than printing a number that may already be stale.
Fla. Fam. L. Form 12.905(b) · flcourts.gov
Where these came from. The three statutes above were read verbatim on the Florida Senate’s own site. Where a source could not be opened and verified, the Kit says so rather than filling the gap from memory — which is why step four sends you to your court’s current list of forms wherever we could not check a number. Every state’s entry is built and stamped the same way.
The Kit shows your state’s rules. It does not tell you whether or when to file. It sets out every route your state offers and the forms each one takes — which route fits your case is your call, not ours, and the same answers always produce the same checklist. Nobody here edits it for your case. It is self-help material and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Find a family lawyer in your state →
The full Kit for your state — threshold, clock, routes and forms checklist — comes with the Change It package, and with every package above it. Change It also carries everything in the packages below it.
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Your state's checklist
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