A parent’s new spouse paying the mortgage and household bills is not, by itself, “income” to that parent for child support, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held on October 21, 2026. In Rampartap v. Rampartap, No. 4D2025-1920, the court reversed a child support order that had added $8,600 a month in household expenses paid by a former wife’s husband to her income.
The facts
Bianca and Darryl Rampartap divorced in 2016. In 2018 the trial court ordered the former husband to pay child support of $225.42 bimonthly. In 2024 the former wife asked to modify child support and custody, alleging that the former husband had moved out of the country and stopped exercising overnight timesharing. The trial court found he had not exercised any timesharing in eight months and was permanently living in Trinidad. It gave the former wife sole parental responsibility and 100% timesharing, then sent child support to a hearing officer.
The hearing officer’s recommended order recited that the former wife testified she earns $1,500 a month in gross income. The officer then added $8,600 a month, the household expenses listed on her financial affidavit that her current husband pays, and treated the total as her income. The trial court adopted that recommendation and set ongoing child support from the former husband at $403 a month.
The statute
Section 61.30(2)(a)13., Florida Statutes (2025), counts as gross income “[r]eimbursed expenses or in kind payments to the extent that they reduce living expenses.” Section 61.046(8) defines “income” as “any form of payment to an individual, regardless of source,” including “any other payments, made by any person.”
The holding
The court said that when a relative regularly pays or reimburses a parent’s household expenses, those contributions can be income to the extent they reduce her living expenses. It cited, among others, Ordini v. Ordini, 701 So. 2d 663 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997), and its own 2023 decision in Varchetti v. Varchetti, 355 So. 3d 435, where an uncle and a fiancé who paid the former wife’s bills were making “in-kind” payments to her.
But it followed Nadeau v. Reeves, 328 So. 3d 1001 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), which held that “[i]n computing a parent’s child support obligation where that parent has remarried, it is error to use a new spouse’s contributions to inflate the income of the remarried parent.” The court wrote that the new spouse’s payment of the mortgage and other household expenses “was not a ‘payment’ made to the former wife.” Without “a payment (whether ‘in kind,’ by reimbursement, otherwise) to the former wife, the new spouse’s payments made for his own household are not the former wife’s ‘income.'”
The opinion also notes that the hearing officer’s worksheet apparently transposed the former wife’s gross ($10,100) and net ($10,487) monthly income, since net income cannot exceed gross. The court did not rest its reversal on that point.
The court reversed so the trial court can determine the former wife’s income and recalculate child support, and left it to the trial court’s discretion how to do so. It affirmed two other issues the former wife raised (notice before income was imputed, and adoption of the recommended order without a hearing or chance to object) without discussion.
The concurrence
Judge Lott, joined by Judge Shepherd, wrote separately with three points. – The key question is whether something is “income” under chapter 61, which turns on whether it is a “payment to” the parent, regardless of who paid. In his example, buying milk or paying the mortgage from a joint account is not an in-kind payment to one’s spouse. But he wrote that a new spouse’s payments could still be income in some cases, such as a monthly allowance for luxury spending. – The Second District’s 1998 decision in Hinton v. Smith, which treated new-spouse contributions as categorically excluded, was “overbroad and wrongly reasoned.” The majority said in a footnote that the Fourth District has not adopted Hinton‘s outright ban. Judge Lott also wrote that the Second District’s later Sunderwirth v. Sunderwirth decision appears to conflict with Varchetti. – Even when a new spouse’s contributions are not income, a court may still deviate from the guidelines under section 61.30(1)(a) and (11)(a) if it makes written findings supported by competent substantial evidence.
Who decided it
Judge Shepherd wrote the opinion. Chief Judge Gerber and Judge Lott concurred.
What it does not decide
The opinion does not say a new spouse’s payments can never count as income. It addresses payments the new spouse made for his own household, not payments made to the former wife.
The opinion is not final until the time to file a rehearing motion expires and any motion is decided.
Source: Rampartap v. Rampartap, No. 4D2025-1920 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct. 21, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.
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