From Court Order to Modified Order
Video Transcript: How can I change the terms that are in my parenting court order? Hi, my name is Jason Sorensen. I’m a Tulsa attorney here at Wirth Law Office, and today we’re going to be talking about the requirements that need to happen for you to be able to change your existing court order.
Now first off, to change your court order, you’d need to do what’s called a modification to the court order and courts are really looking for three things in determining whether there can be a change to that court order. They’re looking for a permanent, substantial, and material change that directly affects the best interests of the child. So there needs to be some kind of meaningful change that’s happened in the child’s life that makes the needs of the child different than what they were before.
So let’s say that you just got your court order and you don’t like what the court order says and you want to do modification. Well, if nothing’s changed since you got that court order, then the court’s not going to be very likely to determine that there’s been any change in the best interest of the child because nothing in the child’s life has changed. So really, they need something new in the child’s life to change that existing court order and it needs to be in the best interest of the child, not just the parents, to make that change. So one example could be even just parents being denied their visitation rights.
If there’s been a repetitive pattern of the custodial parent denying the non-custodial parent’s visitation rights, courts have viewed that as a substantial change that can justify doing the modification. Sometimes a parent moving will justify a modification to the visitation schedule as well, because parents are going to live a new distance away from the child and may require to do less visits, but for longer periods of time.
But this is just general information, if you want more information about your case specifically and whether your circumstances would justify a modification, or maybe you just want some help doing a modification, you can visit us at makelaweasy.com to speak with an Oklahoma divorce lawyer.
