What can you do if a court order is not working anymore? (How to modify family law court order)

So, if you’re reading this you probably have been through the family law court system already. You either have gotten divorced or you’ve gotten a custody agreement, child support order, or alimony order put in place. 

Maybe it’s been a few years since that particular court order was put in place, but it’s not working anymore. What do you do now? Let’s talk about that.

Let’s talk about modifications of custody. 

So you’ve been to court, you have gotten what you think is a parenting plan that’s great for your child, but life happens, and what happens when life happens is that things change. People move further away from each other, the children grow up and extracurriculars come into play and the things that you thought were good, the schedule you thought worked, doesn’t work anymore. 

Some people think that they’re stuck with that particular custody order, but that’s not the case. Courts often anticipate that parents will come back into court to change those custody orders. With the change in circumstances, you get to go back to the court and say to the judge, “Judge, circumstances have changed, and this initial custody order is no longer in the children’s best interest.” The court will consider those changes and the court will put something in place that works for the children.

Oftentimes, it takes some finagling to figure out exactly what works because not only are we considering what works best for the children, but we also have to consider what works best for you. Maybe you can’t meet them at a midway point anymore, or maybe you don’t want the other party coming to your home to pick up or drop off the children anymore. Maybe we need to consider pick-ups and drop-offs from school. All of these are different options in modification for custody we can help you with. You don’t have to go this alone.

Let’s talk about child support. 

When you got that first child support order in place, you and your child’s other parent were at a certain point in your life. Everybody knows most of the times as you stay in a job for longer you make more money or something catastrophic has happened and you might make less money. Well, the law permits you to modify child support to make sure not only the children are taken care of, but also that each parent can financially support themselves and provide a good, stable home for the children. That’s where we come in. We can help you modify your child support order and  go through the different scenarios with income and the children’s expenses to get a order that can be put in place that’s actually going to take care of the children and going to take each parent’s current financial circumstances into place.

You don’t have to do the math on your own and we don’t do the math on our own either. But what we have are the tools that can help you and help us get an order in place that’s current as far as child support goes so that you can make sure you’re not living from paycheck to paycheck and your children still have the financial support they need from both parents to be able to live a good and stable life.

Can you modify alimony? 

Yes, you can. Certain things have to be in play. Probably the biggest thing is that your initial court order for alimony has to be written to say that the alimony is indeed modifiable. If the other side had a sharp attorney at the beginning, the language is already in your order that it’s not modifiable. But if they didn’t, and the financial circumstances have changed, we can definitely talk to you and get a plan in place to modify that alimony for the remaining terms.

How We Can Help

So, if you fall into any of any of these categories, modifying custody, modifying child support, modifying alimony, if any of those apply to you, give us a call at the Edwards Law Group. You don’t have to go it alone. You don’t have to figure out for yourself what all is out there as far as custody and visitation is concerned. You don’t have to do the math on your own or figure out the other party’s income on your own to determine the modification of child support or the modification of alimony. That’s what we’re here for. Pick up the phone, give us a call, or send us an email and we will use that strategy session to come up with you for a strategy going forward.