There is nothing concrete or stable in the long term about divorce. Especially when children are involved, it is very difficult to walk away or make a “clean break” in a relationship. A divorce decree is a living document that can and necessarily will change over time with changes in families, the age of children and financial situations of both spouses.

Modifying Divorce Decrees/Final Judgment Provisions in the Real World

When circumstances change, parties often change their behavior accordingly without court involvement. Different schedules cause people to modify their visitation on their own, increases or decreases in income make people agree to pay each other more or less support, and people often volunteer to go above and beyond their Divorce Decrees or stop doing things they once did. All of these things are fine to do in everyday and realistic practice, and all happen outside the scope and authority of a court. However, one must understand that no changes in decree, support, visitation or other provisions can be made officially without the express consent of a court. For example, if you have agreed for years that your visitation will begin on Thursday and the Decree says Friday, and suddenly you ex-spouse wants it to go back to Friday, there is nothing you can do about that unless you go back to Court and change it!

What Can Be Modified?

It is important to remember that most any provision in a Divorce Decree, including child custody, can be obtained due to a change of circumstances of the parties or children! You can always go back to court and request a modification of the Divorce Decree, but the trick is that only a court can modify a Divorce Decree. If the requested changes are reasonable and make sense in the face of circumstances, it is very likely that those changes will be incorporated into your Divorce documents.

Depending on the circumstance, very specific and applicable changes can be made. One client may want something major like visitation or support to change; another may need special specific provisions added about internet supervision when children reach an age where they might surf the web, about drinking or smoking around children, or about what adults can sleep over at the house with children present. Other clients may need provisions added about needs for college tuition/costs and have a judge decide who will pay for such needs when a child reaches the appropriate age.

Modifications of Child Support

Remember that no matter what, either if support and other provisions were initially determined by agreement of the parties or by a court of law, under Alabama law child support and most other provisions can always be modified based on the circumstances! Circumstances include a change in the income of either parent higher or lower, changes in costs of health care, changes in costs of child care, changes in the age and relative needs of the child (expenses, activities, etc.). The benchmark for requesting a modification based on a change in income is about 10% of an increase or decrease in pay or costs of either party.

You can always go back to court and request a modification of child support, but the trick is that only a court can modify child support. Even if you lost your job and the custodial parent won the lottery, you would still be on the hook for support until a judge officially declared differently.

Please see our Child Support section for further information on Modification of Child Support.

Please see our section on Child Custody for information regarding changes in custody.

Always remember that each and every case is different and sound legal advice can only be attained by speaking directly to a knowledgeable and experienced attorney!