Can You Change Your Alimony or Child Support Obligations Without Going Back to Court?

Family court documents such as marital settlement agreements, parenting plans, and child support orders are meant to be durable enough to prevent future litigation, but nothing is set in stone. Parenting plans are meant to last until the youngest child reaches adulthood, but parents sometimes need to modify them because of changes to the parents’ work situation, the children’s participation in extracurricular activities, or the birth of younger siblings. Likewise, alimony and child support orders always have an end date; in the latter case, they always end when the youngest child reaches adulthood. Despite this, you have the right to modify the amount if you suffer an unavoidable reduction of income because of layoffs or illness. You can even terminate your alimony obligations ahead of schedule if your ex-spouse remarries or moves in with a new partner and merges finances. To do any of these things, though, you must petition the court to issue a new order that abrogates the previous court order. For help modifying your alimony or child support order, contact a Boca Raton divorce lawyer.

What Happens When Your Plans to Downsize Your Lifestyle After Divorce Do Not Work Out the Way You Had Hoped?

The people who realize, before their divorce becomes final, that they will need to reduce their expenses after divorce, and to make moves in this direction even while the divorce case is pending, are the self-aware ones. For example, you might need to move in with relatives or, if you are lucky enough to own a house during your marriage and to keep it after your divorce, to sell your house and move to a lower cost housing situation, whether it involves buying or renting.

A Pasco County man kept his family home after his divorce, since he was the primary residential parent of the couple’s children. He planned to sell the house and buy a less expensive one in an outlying part of the Tampa Bay Area, and the MSA reflected this. The couple agreed that the husband would pay the wife a certain amount in alimony, but that the amount would automatically increase once he moved to the less expensive house.

Everyone knows that selling your house and buying a new one takes longer than you think it will. Furthermore, the courts do not look favorably on agreements that automatically change their provisions when an uncertain future event occurs. Instead, after the event occurs, you should petition the court to modify the award; this even sometimes happens with child support orders, where the paying parent must petition the court to modify the child support amount because one of the children has reached adulthood. An exception is rehabilitative alimony orders, which tend to reduce automatically each year.

Contact Schwartz | White About Optimistically Rebuilding Your Life After Divorce

A South Florida family law attorney can help you draft a marital settlement agreement that reflects both your current reality and your plans for the future.  Contact Schwartz | White in Boca Raton, Florida about your case.

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