'Joint petition to modify judgement'

[ivona 0]

Hi guys,

this is about child custody, any knowledgable input is welcome ...

Here's the crux of it:

My husband has a son from first marriage and the current custody agreement was causing a lot of arguments and hardship for my stepson. About a month and a half ago, through some mediation, my husband and his ex came up with a changed custody/ visitation agreement that we all agree will work better.

We put it all on paper following the old custody agreement template and both of them signed it in front of a notary. The next step was to file it in court (Florida) in order to get it signed by a judge and therefore make it fully binding. When my husband filed it (about 4 weeks ago) he was told this will be no problem; that him and the ex will be called in for a hearing and the judge will ask them both if they agree with what's on paper and would then sign it.

BUT, when my husband called this last week to see what was going on he was told that the document was filed as a "letter of agreement" and that it won't come before a judge because it wasn't filed as a motion, or petition or some sort of "instruction" for the court on what to do with it.

Now obivously, we are trying to avoid lawyer fees and court costs since they BOTH AGREE- the only thing we need from the court is for a judge to sign it in order to make it binding. Clerk of courts, as well as the case manager were completley unhelpfull when we asked how exactly do we need to file this in order to get this done.

In one of those do-it-yourself-law-books for Child custody in Florida I found a form called "Joint petition to modify judgement dissolving marriage" and my common sense tells me that this is exactly what we would need to file because it litterally says : "We have agreed, and hereby stipulate, to a change in the terms of the judgement as indicated below, and request this court to issue an order so modifying our judgment".

The problem is that this is not a form approved by the Florida Supreme Court, and I also had no luck finding it on the Clerk of courts page for our county- in fact on both of these they only have your basic form for custody modification and nowhere is the option of parents actually agreeing to an agreement (outside of court) even mentioned. I refuse to believe that this system does not have a provision that allows parents to agree outside of court, and for the court to just make it binding with one signature.

The reason I'm posting here is that before we file I want to make absolutely sure that it can be filed in this format, and that filing it as a "Joint petition to modify judgement" will get us what we want, which is a judges signature on this new agreement. If push comes to shove and we have to go to a lawyer in order to be told whether we can file it like this or not- we will, but I would rather not pay several hundred $ just for someone to answer this one question. I found some legal services numbers that I will try contacting today but if they don't give me an answer than I don't know where else to ask, outside of going to an attorney.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that this system actually makes it easier for you to take someone to court in order to argue with them, then it is to legalize something that you agreeed on outside of the court.

Thanks for all usefull answers, we could really use them.