starting a court application-is it worth it?

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guineviere

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My exH was supposed to provide me with his 2010 Notice of Assessment from his income tax return on July 15th in order to calculate the next years child support amounts, as we had agreed to in the separation agreement. He is also supposed to provide me with proof that he has a current life insurance policy with me as beneficiary. This was due over a year ago. I emailed him on 3 occasions and asked politely for the above documents and got one reply which was "you will get it when it's ready". So, I had my lawyer send him a letter stating that he is violating the terms of the separation agreement and requested the documents be delivered in less than 14 days. That deadline has come and gone. My lawyer states that we can go ahead and start an application with the court to have my case heard. My question is this, if I go ahead and pay to file to have the application done and have him served, what happens if he suddenly comes up with the documents? Will the money I spent be gone or can I still have the case heard and have him explain himself to the judge and possibly recoup some or all of my legal expenses?
 
First question, did his income change? Is there a chance he made a lot more $ last year over 2009? If not, don't waste your time.

Assume it takes your lawyer 10 hours to do all of this work for you.
(probably a conservative #)
You will pay 3k. To make this cost effective, you had to gain 3k / 12 per month in increased CS. This is 250 / month. In BC one kid @ 80k = 739 / month CS. To increase this to 1000 (for one kid), the Ex needed to have income of 115k.

Did his income have this kind of increase? If not, let this go......
 
You will be dealing with this for years to follow.

He is essentially establishing a precedent that he will ignore the agreement and do as he pleases. He won't just do it this year, he will ignore you next year and the year after.

Filing an application is not just for this year, it is you drawing a line in the sand that you will assert yourself and stand by the legal agreement you both signed.

With a small amount of research you can prepare all the legal documents yourself. You may still wish to have them filed through your lawyer's office.

Once you file them, he will smarten up and you can cancel the application. If he follows through on the requirements of the settlement agreement, then you will not be able to seek costs, forget that idea.

Is your settlement agreement registered with the courts? If so, you can accomplish all of this with a simple motion. If it's not registered with the courts, speak to your lawyer about having it done.

Lotusland47 has been into too much lotus. A lawyer will not type everything up personally and take a cab to the courthouse to file it. It will not take 10 hours of a lawyer's time, it will 1 hour of the lawyer's time, 1 hour of his assisstant or the law clerk, and then have it couriered to the courthouse. The cost to file the application should be >$500, which is still not cheap, but nowhere near $3000.
 
Thanks Mess for the dig. This is one of the problems with the internet - folks say thnings via keyboard they would never say face to face....
I was responding to the question - which I thought was a financial one. The point was that laywers are expensive and there may not be a payback. if the key is for the poster to make a point, then this is not a financial question, it is one of principle. Principle is why the lawyers get 1/3 of a couples assests upon divorce.
The costs you quoted - say 600 all in - for round numbers - would mean that the CS sould have to change by 50 / month. This would mean that Xs income would have to have gone up by about 10k to make this payback over a year.
 
Thank you for the replies. I do want to make a point that he will need to abide by the separation agreement and this is more about that than any extra money I might get. I filed all the divorce papers myself and included a copy of our separation agreement. Does that mena that the agreement has been filed with the court? If i do go ahead and do most of the paperwork myself, which form(s) would i need? I'd like to do it myself and include my lawyer only if necessary; i.e for representation should it get to court so I need to minimize my costs. Thanks for the info, as usual everyone is so helpful.
 
I mentioned in my last email to my exH that if I had not heard from him by tonight that I was fully prepared to go to the FRO as well as start an application with the court. I guess that was scary enough for him in that he e-mailed me the requested documents with some lame excuse as to why they were late.
Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it. Hopefully, next year he will get his act together and give me the documents when he is supposed to.
 
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