JDF 1414: Support Facts, Sworn
JDF 1414 is Colorado's affidavit in support of child support modification. Courts use it to see whether your numbers and change facts support a new order. Custody anger does not belong here as a substitute for paystubs and consistent totals. Line it up with your sworn financial statement before you file. Parenting allocation fights belong in APR or response work ( JDF 1420), not in a support affidavit dressed up as everything-at-once.
This affidavit is for
- Income and deduction facts tied to support math
- Childcare, insurance, and cost changes with proof
- Dated life changes that hit the guideline inputs
This affidavit is not for
- Primary parenting schedule essays
- Character attacks on the other parent
- Numbers that fight your JDF 1104
Relevant Colorado law
The statutes and appellate decisions below are the ones Colorado courts actually apply here. Educational orientation only — not legal advice. Read the source before you rely on it.
Statutes
- C.R.S. § 14-10-115 — Child Support Guidelines; Determination of Income
The guidelines and schedule are a rebuttable presumption in any action to establish or modify child support; a court may deviate where applying them would be inequitable, unjust, or inappropriate, but must make findings giving the reasons and the presumed guideline amount. Support is based on the parents' combined adjusted gross income, the basic obligation is divided between the parents in proportion to each parent's adjusted gross income, and income means actual gross income if employed to full capacity or potential income if unemployed or underemployed; potential income must be used for a voluntarily unemployed or underemployed parent, except a parent who is incapacitated, caring for a joint child under 24 months, or incarcerated for 180 days or more. HB 25-1159 replaced the schedule of basic obligations (now running to $40,000 combined monthly adjusted gross income) and added a parenting time table, effective March 1, 2026: each parent's shared parenting credit is the basic obligation times the credit percentage for that parent's number of overnights, and support ordered may not exceed what the parent would owe with no overnights. An obligor with monthly adjusted gross income of $650 or less owes a $10 minimum order, and an obligor above the self-support reserve but at or below full-time minimum wage cannot be ordered to pay more than 20 percent of adjusted gross income. For an obligor whose adjusted gross income is above $650 but at or below the self-support reserve, the basic obligation is reduced to $50 a month for one child, rising to $150 for six or more children, and the total with add-ons is capped at 10 percent of adjusted gross income (§ 14-10-115(7)(a)(III)(B)-(C)). Under the 2026 parenting time table, the shared parenting credit starts at the first overnight; there is no 93-overnight threshold (§ 14-10-115(8)(h)). The $10 minimum order does not apply if shared parenting time brings the presumptive obligation below $10 (§ 14-10-115(7)(a)(III)(A)).
- C.R.S. § 14-10-124 — Best Interests of the Child
The court allocates parental responsibilities, including parenting time and decision-making, in accordance with the best interests of the child, giving paramount consideration to the child's safety and physical, mental, and emotional conditions and needs, and must consider all relevant factors, including the parents' wishes, the wishes of a sufficiently mature child, the child's relationships, adjustment to home, school, and community, the mental and physical health of all involved, each party's ability to encourage the child's contact with the other party, the past pattern of involvement, physical proximity, and each party's ability to put the child's needs ahead of their own. The court may restrict parenting time only if it finds, after a hearing, that parenting time would endanger the child's physical health or significantly impair the child's emotional development; it may not consider conduct that does not affect a party's relationship to the child, and may not presume a person is better able to serve the child's interests because of that person's sex. Under HB 26-1309 (effective May 27, 2026), the court must make findings by a preponderance of the evidence whether a party committed domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or sexual assault that resulted in conception of a child; if so, the safety and well-being of the child and abused party is the primary concern, the court must impose parenting time conditions that ensure their safety, and mutual decision-making over the other party's objection is not in the child's best interests unless the court specifically finds it can occur without coercion, intimidation, retaliation, or risk of harm. A party's actions to protect the child from witnessing domestic violence or from abuse or neglect are not counted against that party on the encourage-contact factor. This findings duty arises when evidence of domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or sexual assault resulting in conception is submitted by a party, a child and family investigator, a parental responsibilities evaluator, or the child's legal representative. If a party is absent or leaves home because of the other party's domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, or sexual assault resulting in conception, that absence is not a factor against them (§ 14-10-124(1.6)(d)), and the court must consider whether to prohibit or restrict the offending party's parenting time (§ 14-10-124(1.6)(c)). When the court orders unsupervised parenting time despite information or a child's accusation of domestic violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, or coercive control, it must state on the record why unsupervised time is in the child's best interests (§ 14-10-124(9)).
- C.R.S. § 14-10-131 — Modification of Custody or Decision-Making Responsibility
After a motion to modify a custody decree or decision-making allocation is filed, whether or not it was granted, no further motion may be filed within two years after disposition unless the court decides, on affidavits, that there is reason to believe continuing the prior order may endanger the child's physical health or significantly impair the child's emotional development. The court may modify decision-making responsibility only if, based on facts that arose since the prior decree or were unknown to the court at that time, a change has occurred in the circumstances of the child or the party allocated decision-making and the modification is necessary to serve the child's best interests. Even then, the court must retain the prior allocation unless the parties agree; the child has been integrated into the petitioner's family with the other party's consent and that warrants modification; a parenting time modification under section 14-10-129 warrants it; a party has consistently consented to the other party making decisions that party was to make individually or the parties were to make mutually; or retaining the allocation would endanger the child's physical health or significantly impair the child's emotional development and the harm of a change is outweighed by its advantage.
Key cases
- In re Marriage of Aldrich, 945 P.2d 1370 (Colo. 1997)
A parent seeking to modify child support bears a heavy burden to prove a substantial and continuing change in circumstances; a guidelines recalculation that changes support by less than ten percent is deemed not substantial and continuing, while one that changes it by more than ten percent creates a rebuttable presumption that modification must be granted. The court must initially apply the guidelines to the evidence of change, but where the moving parent presents no credible evidence of change (here, a claimed income drop contradicted by about $111,000 in unexplained bank deposits and a new home and car) it need not run the guideline calculation before denying the motion. The court is not required to raise modification issues the moving party did not raise, though it has discretion to do so case by case in the child's best interests. Under current section 14-10-122(1)(a), child support requires changed circumstances that are substantial and continuing; the wording 'so substantial and continuing as to make the terms unfair' that Aldrich quoted now applies only to maintenance. Child support may be modified only as to installments accruing after the motion to modify is filed, and a modification is also available when the existing order lacks a medical support provision (§ 14-10-122(1)(a)).
- In re Marriage of Chalat, 112 P.3d 47 (Colo. 2005)
A child-support obligation incorporated into the divorce decree — including an agreed obligation to pay postsecondary (college) expenses — may be modified only on a showing of substantial and continuing changed circumstances; the court keeps continuing jurisdiction, and the child-support guidelines do not by themselves reopen the order.
- In re Marriage of Evans, 504 P.3d 988 (Colo. App. 2021)
Evans held that when a court allocates a previously misstated or omitted asset under C.R.C.P. 16.2(e)(10), it must follow section 14-10-113, making findings and considering the parties' economic circumstances at the time of the hearing; the child support increase came on the wife's separate motion to modify support, not under Rule 16.2(e)(10). The court of appeals reversed the $12,000 monthly child support award because the magistrate did not explain its basis, and child support findings must be specific enough to show the basis for the order. Where combined adjusted gross income exceeds the top of the schedule, the court uses its discretion considering all relevant factors, but it may not place the burden of the children's reasonable needs entirely on one parent, because both parents share the support obligation. The current statute extends the schedule to $40,000 combined monthly adjusted gross income and provides that above the schedule the presumptive basic obligation must not be less than at the schedule's highest level.
- People ex rel. J.R.T. v. Martinez, 70 P.3d 474 (Colo. 2003)
When deciding whether to impute income to an allegedly underemployed parent under C.R.S. § 14-10-115, the court first asks whether the parent is shirking a child-support obligation by unreasonably foregoing higher-paying work; merely being fired is not automatically “voluntary underemployment” — the court weighs the reasonableness of the parent’s efforts to find comparable work.
Related guides
More Colorado forms
State guides (overview)
General support (not Colorado-specific)
Official source
JDF 1414 (PDF): https://www.coloradojudicial.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/JDF1414.pdf
JDF 1414 questions
What job does JDF 1414 serve in a modification packet?
It supports a child support modification story with sworn financial facts: income, expenses, insurance, childcare, and the changes that justify a new support figure. It is not where you prove who should have Thursday overnights.
What do parents usually under-document?
Variable income methodology, self-employment reality, all wage sources, childcare invoices, and premium costs. Gaps read like hiding, even when you are just overwhelmed.
Why does this form get mixed into custody stress?
Because modification dockets often bundle topics. Keep support paragraphs on support numbers. Let parenting disputes live in parenting motions and plans, not in a muddled affidavit.
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