Q. My wife and I have a very amicable divorce. We are equally sharing our kids, divided all of our assets equally and earn the same income so neither of us is paying support – we are just splitting expenses equally for the kids including the family health insurance.

I think we did all of the paperwork properly, but our filing keeps getting rejected. There was something about a missing guideline report, but I can’t figure that out. There was also something about my wife’s name being listed wrong on the paperwork. She took my name when we got married and still uses it on everything.

Can you give me some guidance on this or do I need to go to the court with my wife to try to sort this out?

A. The easy piece is the guideline. Regardless of whether child support will be paid, you need to complete a child support guideline worksheet and file it with the court when you have minor children. Chances are the worksheet will result in one of you being obligated to pay child support to the other in some nominal amount per week because of the health insurance cost.

You should also complete the child support deviation form checking the box for other and indicating why you are deviating. You can explain that you have the same incomes, are equally sharing the children’s expenses and have an equal parenting schedule. At the hearing the judge will make sure you each understand the waiver and assuming you do, in these circumstances, the deviation should be allowed.

As for the other issues, I highly recommend everyone filling out divorce paperwork pull out a copy of the marriage certificate and read it carefully. The courts carefully compare the marriage certificate to the divorce paperwork. If your wife did not indicate on the marriage certificate an intention to take your name post-divorce but later did so anyway, the court may question her name at the time of the divorce. I recommend listing her name as the married name she uses with an “a/k/a” and listing her prior name.

Finally, make sure all of the name spellings, including the use of middle initial or not, matches the marriage certificate on each form you file if you want to avoid further rejection.

Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com