On the CSS, it asks how much child support my parents’ received.
I live with my grandmother but she does not have legal guardianship of me.
I have to fill out the CSS with my mother’s info.
Do I put down $0 for child support since my mother technically recieves $0. My grandmother is the one who gets the child support.
I take it you live with your maternal grandmother, not paternal grandmother.
Presumably, the child support arrangement that your father agreed to (or that the court ordered) was intended to support you, but your mom has legal guardianship.
I would suggest you report the amount that your dad is legally paying your mom, but he just happens to give the cash to your grandmother to save the step of your mom giving it to your grandmother.
If this is not what is happening, and depending on how deteriorated the relationship between your mom and dad has gotten, your mom might have set your dad up, and she may be planning to sue him for back child support. A woman I used to work with did something very similar to this - out of spite to her ex - and it got very nasty. Sadly, in that case, the grandmother died while the child was a senior in high school, so the mom moved in to the grandmother’s house to “resume” custody, but the relationship between child and mother was so strained, and since the GM had willed the house to the child, the child got a court-appointed advocate to help her declare herself emancipated at 17. Mother eventually went back to the psychiatric hospital.
Usually, in cases like this, it is the child who ends up caught in the middle. You might want to contact the financial aid officer at one of the schools you are applying to, to clarify from them what they are expecting.
Best of luck to you.
I don’t think the mom should be reporting the CS…she doesn’t receive it and has no control over how it’s spent. It doesn’t come into her household.
Besides, it’s going to be a non-issue if support will end when the child graduates from HS.