How Often Can Child Custody or Support Orders Be Modified?

Do You Share a Child With the Spouse You Are Divorcing?

When divorcing spouses are also parents, the difficulties that a divorce entails are multiplied. If you are divorcing or anticipating a divorce in Ontario, and if you share a child with the spouse you are divorcing, a Toronto child custody lawyer can help. In Ontario, custody and access are grouped under parenting arrangements and are called decision-making responsibility and parenting time.

If you and your partner can agree on the custody and child support arrangements, you will both save time and money and avoid a great deal of aggravation. An Ontario child support lawyer can help you prepare child custody and child support agreements that a judge will approve.

But if your divorce is hostile or bitter, and if you can’t reach agreements about child custody or child support, a judge will make those decisions. Your lawyer will explain Ontario’s parenting arrangement and child support laws, answer your questions, and prepare the legal paperwork on your behalf.

Is a “Final” Divorce Agreement Always and Really Final?

Even if your “final” divorce agreement settled a child custody or child support dispute, in the future, changing life circumstances may require you – or your ex – to ask the court for a modification of the child custody or child support agreement.

How do you have the court modify a child custody or child support order in Ontario? What do you have to prove to the court? And if you request the modification of a child custody or child support order, can your ex challenge that request in court?

How Can You Change a Child Custody or Child Support Order?

Either parent may ask a court in Ontario to modify a child custody or child support order if that parent’s (or the child’s) life situation has changed and a modification is necessary. For instance, a child custody or child support order may have to be modified if:

1. The child’s medical or educational needs have changed.
2. Either parent becomes disabled, seriously ill or injured, incapacitated, or unemployed.
3. Either parent remarries or becomes the parent of a newborn with a new partner.
4. Either parent wants or needs to relocate to another jurisdiction.
5. Either parent is convicted of a serious crime or institutionalized for some other reason.

Modifying a custody or child support order is a quite complicated legal procedure, so you must have an Ontario family law lawyer prepare the legal documents that will be needed to begin the modification process.

How Often Can You Modify a Child Support Order?

A private agreement between parents to modify a child support order has no legal force. After the parents negotiate and sign a child support modification agreement, your Toronto child support lawyer will help you complete Form 15D and will submit that form to the court on your behalf.

Most voluntary child support modifications between divorced parents are approved, but the court may hold a hearing to make certain that the agreement is in the child’s best interests. The court will consider a modification only after a significant change in circumstances.

Not all changes in income justify a child support modification, and not every request for a child support modification requires a hearing. Your child custody lawyer can provide personalized advice that will apply to your own situation. There is no limit to the number of times a child support order may be modified. What is required is a significant change in circumstances such as those listed above.

How Often Can You Modify a Child Custody Order?

If both divorced parents agree on a proposal to change their child custody order, your lawyer can submit a consent request to the court, and provided that the agreement is in the child’s best interests, the court should approve it.

If the other parent contests your proposed modification, your lawyer will file a motion requesting the modification. A court hearing will be scheduled where you and your lawyer will present your case for the modification and your ex (and his or her lawyer) will make the argument against it.

Like child support orders, there is legally no limit to the number of times a child custody order may be modified, but a modification will be granted only if there has been a considerable change in circumstances and if the modification is deemed by the court to be in the child’s best interests.

What Else Should Parents Know About Modifying Court Orders?

Whether your request to modify a child custody or child support order will be approved depends on the facts of the case. There are no guarantees. Whether you are requesting a modification or challenging a request by your ex, you must have sound legal advice from a child custody lawyer from the beginning.

Especially if you have been ordered by the court to make child support payments, but you are no longer able to continue making those payments, you must reach out to an Ontario family lawyer immediately and ask that lawyer to help you modify the court’s child support order.

A failure to make timely child support payments may be penalized with the garnishment of your wages and/or bank accounts, the suspension of your driver’s license and/or passport, and/or, in the most egregious cases, time in jail.

Let Anthony Family Law Advocate on Your Family’s Behalf

If you need to modify a divorce-related court order in the GTA or in Windsor, bring the matter immediately to the legal team at Anthony Family Law. Family lawyers Jeffrey Ordon and David Anthony have established a reputation for extraordinary client service and effective courtroom representation.

Anthony Family Law will review with you the requirements for the modification of a court order and will advise you through every step of the legal process. We will submit the paperwork to the court, prepare you for any hearings, and accompany you when and if a hearing is scheduled.

We are skilled and experienced at resolving the most complex and contentious child custody and child support disputes. If you need a court order modified or help with any other matter of family law, now or in the future, promptly call the offices of Anthony Family Law at 647-933-2397.