When a person should seek post-divorce modifications

Just a few years after your divorce agreement, you know that your life and the life of your former spouse have changed. While you have struggled financially due to your work hours being cut because of the COVID-19 pandemic, you know that your former spouse’s fortunes have dramatically changed with a new job and significant boost in salary.

Those financial struggles have greatly affected you, juggling your parental duties that now include helping educate your children, who, like many of their peers, learn from home through distance learning. You worry. Your current situation calls for a prompt legal revisit to your divorce agreement. A post-divorce modification is likely in order.

Personal changes call for revisiting divorce agreements

Plenty of reasons exist for a divorce agreement to get a second, more thorough look. A situation such as yours is among them. Here are prime examples of when post-divorce modifications are necessary after a divorce agreement.

• When one of the former spouses receives a considerable pay raise after accepting a new job with a new company or receiving a work-related promotion. This scenario likely means that the other spouse deserves a bump in child support as well as alimony payments.
• The role of a large inheritance received by either former spouse. Some of that money, again, could go to additional child support and spousal support/alimony payments.
• When one former spouse experiences a significant loss in income. During COVID-19, many people have lost their jobs, and ones who find reemployment often take positions with less pay.
• The remarriage of one of the former spouses. Such a scenario likely affects alimony payments, but not necessarily child support payments. Child custody matters also could change as a result.
• When a child’s needs change. This may surface due to costs associated with health care and education matters. Perhaps your adolescent needs braces for his or her teeth or requires a brace for treating scoliosis. If they participate in school sports and sports clubs, you likely must pay more for equipment and the privilege to play. And education costs can rise with children attending private school as well as college.
• The relocation to another city or even state of the custodial parent. Child custody and visitation matters are affected in these situations. Is such a move in the best interest of the child? In some of these situations, the non-relocating parent may gain custody.

Whether these modifications are temporary or permanent, they represent significant changes, nonetheless. When the lives of people affected by divorce change, their divorce agreements likely will change, too.