Change your order

You or your partner may want or need to change your court order because of changes to your situation. For example:

• Your child's living arrangements have changed.
• Your child has new medical needs.
• Your child has new education needs.
• Either you or your partner would like to move.
• Your partner is not allowing you to see your child.
• Your child finishes school, marries, or moves out on their own.
• Your child is working full-time.
• The payor parent loses their job and can no longer pay the child support ordered.
• The payor parent makes more money and the other parent wants them to pay more child support.
• The partner receiving spousal support should now be self-supporting.
• The partner receiving support is re-married and support was only being paid because they were in need.

Before going to court to change an order, try talking to your partner and see if you can agree on the changes. You can also get help from a family law professional like a mediator to resolve your issues without going to court.

Agree to change your order

If you and your partner can agree on changing or ending your court order, you do not have go to court to have a judge make a decision for you. But you still need to go to court and get a new order based on your agreement.

A consent order is an order made by the court based on your agreement. The forms you fill out depend on the terms of the order you are changing. For example, see changing:

• child support on consent
• spousal support on consent
• decision-making responsibility and parenting time on consent
• child support
• spousal support
• decision-making responsibility and parenting time

Decision-making responsibility and parenting time used to be called custody and access.

Don’t agree to change your order

If you and your partner can't agree on changing or ending your court order, you have to go back to court and bring a motion to change. A motion to change is the name of the court process you go through when you ask a judge to make a decision to change your court order.

The forms you fill out depend on the terms of the order you are changing. For example:

• child support
• spousal support
• decision-making responsibility and parenting time