Legal Ways on How to Get a Court Order Changed
If mediation fails, seeking legal advice and potentially going to court might be necessary. To change a parenting order in court, you need to demonstrate that there’s a significant change in circumstances warranting the modification.
Rice and Asplund Threshold Test
If you are considering changing family court orders, it means that you need to show that there has been a significant change in circumstances that makes a change necessary.
This is to avoid parents continuously going to court to obtain the orders that they want.
However, the Court understands that circumstances in children’s lives will change over time.
A formal application to change the orders must be made in court.
In Rice v Asplund decided over 30 years ago, the Family Court said that before it reviewed a Parenting Order, it would need to be satisfied that:
- A substantial change in circumstances had occurred, or
- That important information was not disclosed when the current Orders were made.
A substantial change in circumstances will depend on the facts of each case.
A Significant Change in Circumstances, Family Law
Here is a list of things that a court may consider when deciding whether or not changing Family Court orders is in the best interests of the child:
- The current Orders are entirely unworkable;
- The current Orders no longer reflect the actual arrangements for the child;
- A parent has relocated;
- A parent has lost their job;
- A parent has remarried;
- When children have expressed a wish to spend time with or live with a different parent.
Changing family court orders through a court should be something a parent considers as a last resort. The Court has been careful to point out that change is an ever-present factor in life and needs to be serious to justify a review of Final Orders.