Changing your agreement or judgement

I hear attorneys say that one reason they love family law is that the clients are always back in their offices; the cases seem to go on forever. How can this be? Well, one reason is that people often seek to modify an agreement or a judgment, long after the divorce is finalized.

This makes sense–after all, life changes. Your agreement or judgement does not. You may sign a divorce agreement today that is supposed to govern you, your spouse, and your kids…forever. Courts recognize that an agreement which makes sense today may not make sense 10 years from now. On the other hand, we don’t want people running back to court to change everything, otherwise, what would the whole point of even coming to an agreement be in the first place if everyone could just change their mind?

Your divorce was finalized one of two ways–a judge entered a judgement and made the decisions, or you agreed in a settlement agreement or at a mediation. Generally, it is tougher to overturn agreements which are done by settlement or mediation. And some things can never be overturned–for example, if you got the house and paid your spouse whatever he was entitled to by your agreement, he cant come back later and say “I want more.” When it comes to most property, when it’s done, it’s done.

But when we talk about some types of alimony, child support, custody, visitation, and other aspects of the divorce, they are modifiable. Generally, however, you need a significant, material and permanent change in circumstances–and it cannot be something that you knew, anticipated, contemplated, or could have known, at the time of your original divorce.

For example, let’s say your Husband worked selling ads for the yellow pages on a commission only basis. If, after a few years, his income shoots up because he is selling more, you may not be able to modify, given that you knew what his income capability was at the time of the divorce, and you knew that there was a chance he could sell a lot and make a lot of commission at any given time. But if he now works for a Bentley dealership, and his commission structure, and earnings, are totally different, and his income has shot up significantly, that may be grounds to modify.

The key in any modification is to ask yourself, “what has changed since the original agreement,” and “is this chance significant?” Your chances of success will, of course, rest in the discretion of the judge, and oftentimes there are no hard and fast rules as to what a significant chance is or is not…a good attorney, however, can give you some guidance on what your chances may be to modify…