HELP: How does this work?

[Edun]

A new court order is being written up by my lawyer. He wishes to include the following…..
"Spousal support shall be adjusted each year with the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines.
The Respondent shall provide up-dated income disclosure of his T4 from his employer together with his Notice of Assessment before March 30 each year and spousal support shall be adjusted each year effective September 1st in accordance with the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines.

My question is if this is written in this way... will FRO automatically adjust support based on the T4 slip provided yearly or will I still need to obtain a court order each year before adjustments are made?

[standing on the sidelines]

ummm i think fro only deals with child support, not spousal

[Edun]

ummm i think fro only deals with child support, not spousal

The FRO does deal with spousal support...I am just not sure how this new agreement will work. Will FRO automatically adjust yearly or will I need to get a new order in place?

[Rioe]

I don't really understand that paragraph. First of all, isn't it highly unusual for spousal support to be changed annually in the same way child support is? I think it's usually set at the agreement and doesn't change, although some agreements have a clause for "periodic review" and the one who wants the change has to initiate the court stuff to get the review.

As I understand FRO, which is quite limited, they only act with a court order, so you'd have to annually get a new court order to bring to them. Way to tie up the family law court resources, not to mention waste your own time annually. I've also heard they are slow to change things and error prone, so odds of it happening the way you want are slim.

Lastly, those are weird choices of dates. Tax deadline is April 30, so it's pretty bitchy to demand your ex have the Notice of Assessment back by March 30. May 30 would come across a lot more reasonable. And even assuming that later deadline, why September for it to take effect? Why not June 30?

Lastly, I personally don't think much of the clause at all. Why should you benefit from his increases in income AFTER the marriage is over? You may have made sacrifices and supported him in his career during the marriage, but now it's all him (and possibly new partner) and there's no reason other than selfishness to demand to benefit from his solo hard work subsequent to your breakup. What's more likely to happen is he'd earn LESS, and then take advantage of the clause to argue that his spousal support to you should be reduced.

My advice: tell your lawyer you don't want that clause. Just argue for a fixed amount of spousal support for a fixed amount of time, and then you never have to deal with your ex, or court, again. Your lawyer is very likely just drawing out the process with these weird clauses and arguing back and forth so that you'll have to pay him more, for longer.