Hey there. Welcome to From Separation to Settlement with Jeffrey Hale, a podcast about navigating the legal and emotional journey through family law. Jeffrey is a litigation partner at Kroger Hale law firm who has dedicated his career to guiding families through divorce, custody, and other complex legal challenges with compassion and clear, honest advice. I'm Kevin Rosenquist. And, of course, as always, I am joined by Jeffrey Hale.
Jeffrey, great to see you again. Kevin, great to be back. So we're gonna talk about post divorce changes, which I know we've touched on to some degree, but we're gonna dive a little deeper today, talk about how to modify custody, support, or visitation in Ohio. So let's start here. What is what is a post decree modification in family law?
So that can it's can be anything that comes after the final decree of divorce. So, the most common, I would say, that we run into are post decree modifications of, basically of parenting time, parenting rights, custody, shared parenting, all everything surrounding the children typically are the most common post decree motions we run into. Then, obviously, we get into child support, spousal support, but that's that's probably that's probably about the the gist of it. The court typically, on property, the court is not very friendly or very kind about any attempts to modify a property distribution. So those those are not very common at all, and they're only available in very rare cases.
So the most common probably is anything involving the children. Oh, yeah. Okay. And we talked last episode was a lot about, what was all about custody, parenting time, and the like. I I believe you said, was it three years that that goes by where you where you they kinda review it again, the the child custody and the and the, child support?
No. Child child support, they review on a three year. They do an administrative review every three years. Well, it's offered to you. You don't have to do it.
Sure. If everything's working, then you just go go about business. Correct. Now with parenting time, custody, shared parenting, visitation, those things are always reviewable until the child well, until the court loses jurisdiction at 18 and graduating from high school. So there's no set time to review that.
That can be reviewed at any point in time when a party files a motion and saying that there's been a substantial change in either the child's life or the life of the custodial parent in a custody situation or just in the child's life and in the the party situation during a shared parenting situation. Okay. And what what counts as change in circumstances? I mean, it could it could be anything, and it can be nothing at all. So, I mean, you the court is they don't want a lot of back and forth.
So it it needs to be a substantial change that is that is a very important change in the child's life and or in the lives of the parties. It can't just be well, you know, typically, people will say, oh, well, my ex moved and she's fifteen minutes further from me. That's not gonna be a substantial change. A fifteen minute drive is not gonna be that big of a change. Substantial changes can be if a party attempts to relocate out of the state.
If a party is, remarrying and there's gonna be a a large blending of the family and that's gonna and it's gonna require a move. There and if there's a lot of financial trouble and the party's gonna lose their home. In some instances, those can be there's a lot of things that can be considered a change. It's just it really comes down to how how detrimental is it or how detrimental is that change to be gonna be to the child's situation? What what about changes for the kids?
Whether you know, I mean, I I've I've known people with kids who's who are really, really good at hockey, and they're constantly on the road or or are really good at, you know, musical instrument and they're constantly doing stuff. Is are there changes in the child's life that parents might say, okay. We need to figure this out because dad takes kiddo to practice more often, so we have to change our our agreement? So there there are instances where pet children's parenting time well, I'm sorry. The parenting time involving the children will need to be changed.
So as as children get older and they get more involved in activities, then the courts understand that sometimes there needs to be a change. There needs to be an adjustment to that parenting schedule. And so that can be something that can get you back into court. And then in your scenario, if you have, you know, someone who's very good at a sport, they're very dedicated to it, going to it, a lot of time a lot of times, you'll find that parents can work that out because, typically, it's both parents wanting to support, you know, that child doing that. So a lot of times, you can get that worked out, and where all you're doing is submitting an agreed entry to the court saying we've agreed to make these changes.
And if not, then you can go to the court and use, you know, the the change in the age, the change in the involvement to ask the court to reconsider. So you you say go to go to the court. What what is the exact process? Do you need to have your lawyer do something? Do you go to the court and do something?
Do you send something in? How does the actual process work? So, technically, once once there is an order from the court and the case is essentially over, the court has no jurisdiction until a motion is filed. So the court can enter a decree of divorce, a shared parenting decree, and the case is essentially I I would just call it dormant. Nothing's gonna happen with it.
And until an attorney or and you don't even need an attorney. You can file a motion your yourself. It's just it's depending on what you're filing, it can be very complicated, and there are certain there are certain language that needs to be in it that attorneys are used to using and laypeople aren't. So but you you don't need the attorney. It's just sometimes it's easier and, you know, people just don't have the time that they wanna dedicate to it.
So that motion triggers the court's jurisdiction, and that is what allows them to look and reopen the case. And then what takes place after that, you know, is is up to the court, up to getting getting on the court's calendar. Okay. And, you know, we talked last episode about child support and and making changes to that as life changes happen. And and you you talked about how it's it's and rightfully so.
It's about what's best for the kids. What about spousal support? Can that be modified, and what would trigger that? So spousal support can be modified. In most instances that I've seen is when you have a spousal support order, if if it comes by way of agreement of the parties, then you you typically write in that the court will not maintain jurisdiction over spouse support.
So that blocks it from ever being modified, and it's typically set for a you know, it has a set period of time. So, you know, spouse agrees to pay x amount of dollars for five years. The court does not maintain jurisdiction over this over this section. So that that locks it in at a thousand dollars for five years. That's the most that's what will be paid, and that's the most they'll ever have to pay.
Now when a court makes a decision, the the court can leave jurisdiction open for them to make adjustments and to outright terminate it if if they if it becomes appropriate. So an adjustment would be much like child support if income, you know, if the income goes up or down and there's a large disparity in that income, terminating it, which can also be written into even an agreed one. Terminating is if you if if an individual receiving spousal support chooses to live in a a quote, unquote marriage like relationship, if either spouse dies or it just it terminates upon the length of the agreement. Okay. Okay.
That makes sense. And we talked a little bit before about, you you mentioned something about, parents moving, and that depending on the distance that could justify a change. I'd like to unpack that a little bit more. Obviously, you can't just up and leave without telling the other parent and all that. What are the rules as far as one parent wanting to move away, particularly the parent with more parenting time, wanting to move away?
So if if a parent wants to move, they have to they have to notify the court and notify the other parties called a notice of relocation. So you have to file that. And, typically, if it's if the move is in in one of our local courts, it's if the move is more than 75 miles from your previous address, then you also have to file with that a proposed if it's not if it's not the if the move is not by agreement of the parties, then they would have to file a proposal for what parenting time is gonna look like with this new distance between them. Yeah. That's significant.
That's a lot of that's a lot of distance. Absolutely. And they have to ask the court, number one, they have to put on notice that they're moving, then they have they have to file the proposal asking the court to adopt that proposal. And what's gonna happen is that that notice and the proposal will get sent to the other party, and that's typically, that triggers an objection, and then it gets set for a hearing. Okay.
Alright. So but but even, you know, depending on where you live, even a 15 mile move can make a big difference. You know, I used to live in Chicago and an extra 15 miles. Alright. That's gonna add a heck of a lot of time to your commute to getting the kids to school or to or to get the kids back to their parent to the to primary parent.
So it does the court take that into consideration, or is it just a mileage thing? They do. They do. So it's in this is where we go into I think in previous episodes, we had touched on local counsel. So it goes in to understanding the local rules.
Some some courts will set a mileage. Some courts in their local rules say that anytime you're gonna be changing households, you need to file that notice of relocation. So that that automatically gives notice to the other party and and, frankly, it gives notice to child support and to the court, so if they're trying to send you documents. But the from in my opinion, the important one is getting noticed to that other party so that they're aware that this change is coming and they have an opportunity to be heard. Because in the scenario you gave there, in 15 miles going through Chicago traffic's a lot different than 15 miles, you know, going through the suburbs of Cincinnati.
And and if you're gonna modify a parenting plan, does it have to be does it have to do both parents have to agree to the modification, or are there situations where the court will dictate what that modification is? So if you're agree if you have an agreement, then the parents can just simply enter and agree as referred to as an agreed entry, and they'll put the changes that they've agreed to. And, basically, that agreed entry will modify that portion of the previous court order. Now if if there's not an agreement, then the court will set up for a hearing. You will present evidence as to why you don't agree with it.
They'll present evidence as to why they do agree with it, and then you have a hearing. So if one parent violates the current order, what does the other parent what what is their course of action? How do they go about letting the court know that it's been violated, and what are the consequences to the parent who did violate the current order? So the the avenue of recourse for violation of court order is always gonna be contempt. Yeah.
So the parties will file a contempt or a show cause action and ask the court basically, notifying the court that this individual is violating the order, that they're not following it, and then asking the court to step in and basically punish this individual. If the individual is found in contempt for violating the court order, then there, I mean, there are fines and fees that can be levied. If it's a parenting time issue, then the parent the non offending parent can get makeup time, and their attorney's fees and court costs can be ordered to be reimbursed. And then ultimately, with a contempt, the court does have the power to put you in jail if you continue to refuse to abide by the court's orders. Extreme cases, I'd imagine.
Hopefully, it doesn't happen too often. Yeah. Those those are very extreme because with the con even with the contempt finding, the court has to give the individual the chance to purge that contempt, basically, to make that contempt right. And if they if they if they do the purge and there's no more trouble, then it goes away. So it just it's kinda like the contempt never happened.
Mhmm. But you can always come back in and file if it can if they continue down that course. What are the most common reasons that you see in your practice for modifying an agreement? Some of the most common that I've run into lately have been when individuals have shared parenting plans. It's believed that the parties are continue are going to continue working together as though the relationship, the marriage had never broken.
It's gonna be working together to raise the kids, working together to make joint decisions. So a lot of times what I run into, at least it has been very prevalent lately, has been when the parties just can't work together. Mhmm. One party decides to start making all the decisions, won't won't not communicate with the other party. The a major crux of shared parenting is being able to communicate.
Right. And so you have to you have to basically almost raise the children as though the marriage never broke. And that's that's not easy to do. Obviously, you're talk you you try to do everything you can for your kids, but you're talking about emotions. You're talking about potential there's could be potential anger, resentment, jealousy, what have you.
Trying to do that, trying to parent kids with the the exact same way as you as you did when you were together is quite quite the challenge, I can imagine. Oh, it is. It is. And one of the things we have to try to help coach clients on is at some point in time, you have to remove the emotion, and it has to become a business transaction. Yeah.
Because that's that's the only way you're gonna effectively parent together is you you just treat it like a business transaction. You you love your children. You can be emotional for your children, but that other parent is just a business partner to you, and you're trying to raise, you know, raise your children together. That's a really interesting take angle, I think. Like, to to think of it more like a business transaction, like, the that that you two are in a, like, a, like, a not you know, like, a a partnership that is strictly about these kids and nothing else.
If you can get to that point, that's, yeah, that's the best outlook you could have. Yeah. Absolutely. You just you you have to look at it as you you don't wanna use a tone of voice or speak to that person any different than you would speak to a business associate. Yeah.
Yeah. That's how you slowly start to remove the emotion from it. Yeah. That's a really good tip. I I could see that helping if you can get there for sure.
Alright. Well, thanks for joining us on from separation to settlement. If your custody or support order no longer fits your life and you need some help, visit kronerlaw.com to speak with Jeff Hale. Be sure to follow the show so you don't miss out on what's next. We got lots more content coming your way.
Jeffrey, so good to see you again. Thanks so much for the time. Thank you, Kevin. Always a pleasure.
Jeffrey, great to see you again. Kevin, great to be back. So we're gonna talk about post divorce changes, which I know we've touched on to some degree, but we're gonna dive a little deeper today, talk about how to modify custody, support, or visitation in Ohio. So let's start here. What is what is a post decree modification in family law?
So that can it's can be anything that comes after the final decree of divorce. So, the most common, I would say, that we run into are post decree modifications of, basically of parenting time, parenting rights, custody, shared parenting, all everything surrounding the children typically are the most common post decree motions we run into. Then, obviously, we get into child support, spousal support, but that's that's probably that's probably about the the gist of it. The court typically, on property, the court is not very friendly or very kind about any attempts to modify a property distribution. So those those are not very common at all, and they're only available in very rare cases.
So the most common probably is anything involving the children. Oh, yeah. Okay. And we talked last episode was a lot about, what was all about custody, parenting time, and the like. I I believe you said, was it three years that that goes by where you where you they kinda review it again, the the child custody and the and the, child support?
No. Child child support, they review on a three year. They do an administrative review every three years. Well, it's offered to you. You don't have to do it.
Sure. If everything's working, then you just go go about business. Correct. Now with parenting time, custody, shared parenting, visitation, those things are always reviewable until the child well, until the court loses jurisdiction at 18 and graduating from high school. So there's no set time to review that.
That can be reviewed at any point in time when a party files a motion and saying that there's been a substantial change in either the child's life or the life of the custodial parent in a custody situation or just in the child's life and in the the party situation during a shared parenting situation. Okay. And what what counts as change in circumstances? I mean, it could it could be anything, and it can be nothing at all. So, I mean, you the court is they don't want a lot of back and forth.
So it it needs to be a substantial change that is that is a very important change in the child's life and or in the lives of the parties. It can't just be well, you know, typically, people will say, oh, well, my ex moved and she's fifteen minutes further from me. That's not gonna be a substantial change. A fifteen minute drive is not gonna be that big of a change. Substantial changes can be if a party attempts to relocate out of the state.
If a party is, remarrying and there's gonna be a a large blending of the family and that's gonna and it's gonna require a move. There and if there's a lot of financial trouble and the party's gonna lose their home. In some instances, those can be there's a lot of things that can be considered a change. It's just it really comes down to how how detrimental is it or how detrimental is that change to be gonna be to the child's situation? What what about changes for the kids?
Whether you know, I mean, I I've I've known people with kids who's who are really, really good at hockey, and they're constantly on the road or or are really good at, you know, musical instrument and they're constantly doing stuff. Is are there changes in the child's life that parents might say, okay. We need to figure this out because dad takes kiddo to practice more often, so we have to change our our agreement? So there there are instances where pet children's parenting time well, I'm sorry. The parenting time involving the children will need to be changed.
So as as children get older and they get more involved in activities, then the courts understand that sometimes there needs to be a change. There needs to be an adjustment to that parenting schedule. And so that can be something that can get you back into court. And then in your scenario, if you have, you know, someone who's very good at a sport, they're very dedicated to it, going to it, a lot of time a lot of times, you'll find that parents can work that out because, typically, it's both parents wanting to support, you know, that child doing that. So a lot of times, you can get that worked out, and where all you're doing is submitting an agreed entry to the court saying we've agreed to make these changes.
And if not, then you can go to the court and use, you know, the the change in the age, the change in the involvement to ask the court to reconsider. So you you say go to go to the court. What what is the exact process? Do you need to have your lawyer do something? Do you go to the court and do something?
Do you send something in? How does the actual process work? So, technically, once once there is an order from the court and the case is essentially over, the court has no jurisdiction until a motion is filed. So the court can enter a decree of divorce, a shared parenting decree, and the case is essentially I I would just call it dormant. Nothing's gonna happen with it.
And until an attorney or and you don't even need an attorney. You can file a motion your yourself. It's just it's depending on what you're filing, it can be very complicated, and there are certain there are certain language that needs to be in it that attorneys are used to using and laypeople aren't. So but you you don't need the attorney. It's just sometimes it's easier and, you know, people just don't have the time that they wanna dedicate to it.
So that motion triggers the court's jurisdiction, and that is what allows them to look and reopen the case. And then what takes place after that, you know, is is up to the court, up to getting getting on the court's calendar. Okay. And, you know, we talked last episode about child support and and making changes to that as life changes happen. And and you you talked about how it's it's and rightfully so.
It's about what's best for the kids. What about spousal support? Can that be modified, and what would trigger that? So spousal support can be modified. In most instances that I've seen is when you have a spousal support order, if if it comes by way of agreement of the parties, then you you typically write in that the court will not maintain jurisdiction over spouse support.
So that blocks it from ever being modified, and it's typically set for a you know, it has a set period of time. So, you know, spouse agrees to pay x amount of dollars for five years. The court does not maintain jurisdiction over this over this section. So that that locks it in at a thousand dollars for five years. That's the most that's what will be paid, and that's the most they'll ever have to pay.
Now when a court makes a decision, the the court can leave jurisdiction open for them to make adjustments and to outright terminate it if if they if it becomes appropriate. So an adjustment would be much like child support if income, you know, if the income goes up or down and there's a large disparity in that income, terminating it, which can also be written into even an agreed one. Terminating is if you if if an individual receiving spousal support chooses to live in a a quote, unquote marriage like relationship, if either spouse dies or it just it terminates upon the length of the agreement. Okay. Okay.
That makes sense. And we talked a little bit before about, you you mentioned something about, parents moving, and that depending on the distance that could justify a change. I'd like to unpack that a little bit more. Obviously, you can't just up and leave without telling the other parent and all that. What are the rules as far as one parent wanting to move away, particularly the parent with more parenting time, wanting to move away?
So if if a parent wants to move, they have to they have to notify the court and notify the other parties called a notice of relocation. So you have to file that. And, typically, if it's if the move is in in one of our local courts, it's if the move is more than 75 miles from your previous address, then you also have to file with that a proposed if it's not if it's not the if the move is not by agreement of the parties, then they would have to file a proposal for what parenting time is gonna look like with this new distance between them. Yeah. That's significant.
That's a lot of that's a lot of distance. Absolutely. And they have to ask the court, number one, they have to put on notice that they're moving, then they have they have to file the proposal asking the court to adopt that proposal. And what's gonna happen is that that notice and the proposal will get sent to the other party, and that's typically, that triggers an objection, and then it gets set for a hearing. Okay.
Alright. So but but even, you know, depending on where you live, even a 15 mile move can make a big difference. You know, I used to live in Chicago and an extra 15 miles. Alright. That's gonna add a heck of a lot of time to your commute to getting the kids to school or to or to get the kids back to their parent to the to primary parent.
So it does the court take that into consideration, or is it just a mileage thing? They do. They do. So it's in this is where we go into I think in previous episodes, we had touched on local counsel. So it goes in to understanding the local rules.
Some some courts will set a mileage. Some courts in their local rules say that anytime you're gonna be changing households, you need to file that notice of relocation. So that that automatically gives notice to the other party and and, frankly, it gives notice to child support and to the court, so if they're trying to send you documents. But the from in my opinion, the important one is getting noticed to that other party so that they're aware that this change is coming and they have an opportunity to be heard. Because in the scenario you gave there, in 15 miles going through Chicago traffic's a lot different than 15 miles, you know, going through the suburbs of Cincinnati.
And and if you're gonna modify a parenting plan, does it have to be does it have to do both parents have to agree to the modification, or are there situations where the court will dictate what that modification is? So if you're agree if you have an agreement, then the parents can just simply enter and agree as referred to as an agreed entry, and they'll put the changes that they've agreed to. And, basically, that agreed entry will modify that portion of the previous court order. Now if if there's not an agreement, then the court will set up for a hearing. You will present evidence as to why you don't agree with it.
They'll present evidence as to why they do agree with it, and then you have a hearing. So if one parent violates the current order, what does the other parent what what is their course of action? How do they go about letting the court know that it's been violated, and what are the consequences to the parent who did violate the current order? So the the avenue of recourse for violation of court order is always gonna be contempt. Yeah.
So the parties will file a contempt or a show cause action and ask the court basically, notifying the court that this individual is violating the order, that they're not following it, and then asking the court to step in and basically punish this individual. If the individual is found in contempt for violating the court order, then there, I mean, there are fines and fees that can be levied. If it's a parenting time issue, then the parent the non offending parent can get makeup time, and their attorney's fees and court costs can be ordered to be reimbursed. And then ultimately, with a contempt, the court does have the power to put you in jail if you continue to refuse to abide by the court's orders. Extreme cases, I'd imagine.
Hopefully, it doesn't happen too often. Yeah. Those those are very extreme because with the con even with the contempt finding, the court has to give the individual the chance to purge that contempt, basically, to make that contempt right. And if they if they if they do the purge and there's no more trouble, then it goes away. So it just it's kinda like the contempt never happened.
Mhmm. But you can always come back in and file if it can if they continue down that course. What are the most common reasons that you see in your practice for modifying an agreement? Some of the most common that I've run into lately have been when individuals have shared parenting plans. It's believed that the parties are continue are going to continue working together as though the relationship, the marriage had never broken.
It's gonna be working together to raise the kids, working together to make joint decisions. So a lot of times what I run into, at least it has been very prevalent lately, has been when the parties just can't work together. Mhmm. One party decides to start making all the decisions, won't won't not communicate with the other party. The a major crux of shared parenting is being able to communicate.
Right. And so you have to you have to basically almost raise the children as though the marriage never broke. And that's that's not easy to do. Obviously, you're talk you you try to do everything you can for your kids, but you're talking about emotions. You're talking about potential there's could be potential anger, resentment, jealousy, what have you.
Trying to do that, trying to parent kids with the the exact same way as you as you did when you were together is quite quite the challenge, I can imagine. Oh, it is. It is. And one of the things we have to try to help coach clients on is at some point in time, you have to remove the emotion, and it has to become a business transaction. Yeah.
Because that's that's the only way you're gonna effectively parent together is you you just treat it like a business transaction. You you love your children. You can be emotional for your children, but that other parent is just a business partner to you, and you're trying to raise, you know, raise your children together. That's a really interesting take angle, I think. Like, to to think of it more like a business transaction, like, the that that you two are in a, like, a, like, a not you know, like, a a partnership that is strictly about these kids and nothing else.
If you can get to that point, that's, yeah, that's the best outlook you could have. Yeah. Absolutely. You just you you have to look at it as you you don't wanna use a tone of voice or speak to that person any different than you would speak to a business associate. Yeah.
Yeah. That's how you slowly start to remove the emotion from it. Yeah. That's a really good tip. I I could see that helping if you can get there for sure.
Alright. Well, thanks for joining us on from separation to settlement. If your custody or support order no longer fits your life and you need some help, visit kronerlaw.com to speak with Jeff Hale. Be sure to follow the show so you don't miss out on what's next. We got lots more content coming your way.
Jeffrey, so good to see you again. Thanks so much for the time. Thank you, Kevin. Always a pleasure.
