Renegotiating a Divorce Agreement

{6 minutes to read}  In a divorce agreement or any (most?) agreement, you can have the option to renegotiate certain items or re-evaluate certain based on a significant change in circumstance whether it could reasonably have been contemplated or not. Child support in New York and New Jersey can, by statute, get re-evaluated every two or three years depending. Parents don't necessarily have to renegotiate, but they do have the option.

Why is that? In part, because the children's needs might change. Depending upon the ages of the children, there are certain times when, developmentally, things could be discovered. They might need more support. The parents' incomes change and the children are entitled to be living a lifestyle that their parents can support. Children are entitled to what their parents can provide, so it makes sense to adjust that over time.

There are other things, depending upon people's circumstances, where it makes sense in an agreement to have some terms that are not open-ended but to have a mechanism where the parties can return to mediation, typically, a mediated agreement, that's going to be the preferred option, update certain terms. Sometimes parties will agree to that for spousal support or alimony. The circumstances they're in when they come to mediation and when they're going through a divorce might be dire or extreme, where they're going to require a substantial amount of support. But in a couple of years, it's anticipated that one of the parties will be back in the job market and will be earning more. And maybe it's hard to guesstimate what that will be, so it might be a time to reevaluate things if the parties are in agreement. And sometimes when the situation or the parties are kind of at an intractable point to say, "Look, we can make this decision for six years, but part of the decision is at year six we're going to come back and look at this again."

Some things with parenting require constant contact between parties, like when there's a provided share of extracurricular expenses, where each parent is responsible for their respective share for whatever expenses were agreed to in the agreement. So, they could be in regular contact about these expenses. And when perhaps that should be avoided. There are certain things that are relatively unavoidable when you're divorcing but raising children together.  When the parents have very different levels of involvement with the child, very different parenting styles, or a different sense of the child's needs, there can be an enormous amount of acrimony. 

Regular contact over things like bills should be avoided because having to review and submit a bill can keep the parties in regular acrimonious contact. Let's say, one parent is the primary, and they're the ones taking the kid to the doctor, therapy, or something. But to begin with, the other parent doesn't believe in therapy and thinks it's ridiculous. The one parent is taking the child to therapy every week or month and is submitting these therapy bills, and likely we'll be having the same conversation with the other parent that he or she needs to pay 60% or 50%. And they're going to be having the same argument they were having in their marriage. Finances are a place that's pretty loaded for most people, especially those with ongoing connections with finances.

So, to avoid situations like that, maybe agree, for example, to an amount of child support that would cover a percentage from the get-go, or agree to a fixed amount and avoid a lot of the pro rata. To avoid regular interactions and intercourse about these costs would probably be wise. So, in this case, even if it's not going to be perfect, it never is. I think perfection is not the goal. But if we were to say, "Look, I know my kid is going to need therapy once a week. The therapy bills are generally this. Let's factor this into child support. When this is no longer the case, or there might be a higher level of treatment needed or whatever, then we can maybe address it down the road."

But to come up with an amount that largely covers these needs, to minimize the amount of time the parents would have to have a conversation/argument over bills and submitting them and constantly be requesting payment for things that another party isn't in agreement with. So, that would be a time when more things could be worked out and generalized in the agreement to avoid regular interaction over finances, extraordinary expenses, and so forth, would be wise. And probably would mean that the parent, even if it is the one who is looking to be reimbursed for expenses, even if they are not getting the exact amount, without agreeing to a set amount, they might be getting nothing or getting such delayed payments or the aggravation is so much that they end up getting less than the pro rata share anyway. So, compromising on a general number might be wise.