The rules in family law utlimately arbitrate between parents who can't come to an agreement themselves. We shouldn't forget that parents are the best judges of what`s good for their kids and therefore are free to, indeed encouraged to craft their own agreements that suit their family`s interests.
When we seek legal counsel in validating separation agreements, the lawyer has a duty to their client to seek the best deal for his client. All negotiations are carried out in the context of what the court would do if it had to get that far, which lays the foundation for parents with an idea of what they want to happen to depart from that because the lawyer tells him or her that he or she can do better - cue the arguing.
Then we come to forums like this one and we listen to the experiences of other people in our lives where the outcome is so often determined by a court or what a court would do. The conflicted parents are the ones who are newsworthy, and the ones who end up in or near court. The amicable ones that did do the job on their own don`t have the juicy details for others to pay attention to and so they don`t garner attention. Those parents got the job done with little fanfare and moved on with their lives. They didn`t make their problems the focus of their lives and those around them for the months and years it took to settle their differences. Those stories faded to black. So notwithstanding that we are free to come to our own terms, most people`s separations end up being governed by what a court would do, and they get the attention, and we forget that we`re free to do it on our own.
Yes, an agreement can provide that each parent is free to indvidually choose to pay or not to pay for post secondary. As long as the agreement is properly executed and each side was legally represented when the agreement was made, it will difficult to overturn the terms down the road.
If the agreement was easily invalidated then it wouldn`t really be worth much as parties would rely on and dispense with agreements at their convenience. That said, it is family law, where the best interest test could conceivably trump the agreement down the road. For that to happen though, would require a compelling extenuating circumstance e.g. parent who just won millions of dollars still refuses to pay school, or any multitude of examples.
Then again, what the hell do I know
