Understanding Breach of Contract in Family Law

A great deal of family law matters involves contracts: the most obvious examples are divorce settlements and child custody agreements but can also include issues such as adoption contracts. In summation, a contract is a legally binding agreement between parties in which each party agrees to provide services or relinquish items. In family law matters, the breach of a contract is the willful or unintentional failure of any party to:

It is easy to imagine that in family law matters a breach can quickly create chaos and consternation. If you are supposed to receive support payments every month, but fail to receive even one – you may be in trouble. You may now have to be concerned with how to feed yourself and your children. Even where a single contract has no ambiguity as to what it requires of each party, the law itself is often ambiguous as well. For example, what happens when a non-custodial parent is supposed to call to speak to their children every evening at 6PM but chooses, out of turn, to do so at 3PM. Perhaps the children are not ready. Perhaps they cannot hear the phone because their mother is vacuuming. Now the children are angry that they have been stopped from watching television and you are disappointed that the phone call was too brief to make a meaningful connection. If this continued, you might want to take the step of hiring a lawyer to draft an amendment to try and limit the scope on when the phone calls can occur. But why does a contract for this type of matter even exist? Are there not a great many other areas in which the Courts could get involved and tell everyone what needs to happen? Surely, they have more important things to worry about. The issue is that once we involve the Courts in these matters, someone is going to get punished, the gloves will come off, and this situation is guaranteed to escalate. So, the next time the non-custodial parent misses a phone call, we are no longer monsters – we are enemies. What the drafting of those contracts does, whether it be for visitation, child support, division of assets, division of debt, or anything else, is allow each party access to the law in a much more amicable and cooperative manner.

Naturally, the step after the drafting of an appropriately worded contract is the enforcement of that contract. At the point where the Courts need to get involved you need to reach out to your local family law attorney to help review your circumstances and decide the best way to proceed. If you are the one in breach of the contract, your attorney may be able to help assist as to how best to undo the damage, or avoid worse consequences. If you are the aggrieved party, though, your attorney may advise you to write a sample demand letter for breach of contract. A demand letter is an important step that informs the breaching party that they have failed to satisfy their contractual obligations.

This is an opportunity to remind you that Scott L. Levine’s family law practice views the client not as the result of the matter that brings them to our office, but rather as part of the community we are working to protect and preserve. We understand that our clients often come to us in very difficult times in their lives. As such, our job goes beyond just providing the legal services needed to resolve a matter and includes a measure of compassionate sensitivity.

While it may seem counterintuitive, the best way to avoid litigation with your ex-spouse or estranged child if they are in breach of a contract, or more usually a Stipulation or Order, is to first send a demand letter. Not only does sending a demand letter force the violator to acknowledge their actions and give them an opportunity to correct them, but even if that does not work, it has an added benefit. A demand letter serves as a moment of purely communication (typically). So, for example, if you have been having trouble getting your ex to speak to you: if they answer a demand letter then they have just agreed to communicate with you, and the flood gates are open. Conversely, if they refuse to even answer their message, then you have a record of them refusing that communication. So, should you later need to bring this matter before the Court and prosecute your rights after all, then you can do so with the added impact of proof that your ex-spouse or estranged child did have the opportunity and chose not to respond.

What is a good demand letter? What should you include in it? Well, I would very much recommend that you head over to the website listed above. The coming series of articles promise to be highly informative to those interested in the topic of contract breaches. Additionally, by reading the article that can be found at sample demand letter breach of contract, you will be equipped with the knowledge to write a demand letter that is perfect for your needs.

Once the demand letter is sent, there are two potential responses. First, you can receive a reply demonstrating the violator has appreciated the mistakes made and has moved to correct the violations. Such a response would be the optimal result, as it would find you to be justly compensated and receive no further interference from your ex or estranged child. However, the second possibility is that such a response is not received.

If that should occur, you need to meet with a family law attorney who will file a motion before the Court to either obtain an Order enforcing the contract as written or to write an amendment to try and limit the scope of the contract. Again, as a matter of legal services the drafting of that amendment or appearance before the Court is not a service that should be done without the help of an experienced, compassionate family law attorney. This is especially true, of course, in matters involving custody rights.

Again, more often than not, your great family law attorney can more quickly and easily draft a motion than you will be able to do yourself. This is because they will be intimately familiar with how the judge in your area acts, what standard is appropriate, what can reasonably be accomplished for you, and what the cost involved will be. Naturally, it varies from matter to matter, but sometimes such matters can be done for a flat fee.