Divorce Lawyers Dallas

ATTENTION: This portion of our site has been written by a family law attorney to help both attorneys and people facing divorce understand the art of good negotiation to reach a successful divorce settlement.
Introduction
I strongly believe in negotiation and settlement. There are few words in the law more beautiful than settlement. The word denotes:
- No more fighting
- No appeals
- Less cost
- The parties, rather than a third party, control their own fate
- More care can be given to use creative approaches
- More care can be given to use the tax code to both parties’ benefit

Divorce Source: Divorce Negotiations and Settlements

Where the parties to a settlement agreement intend to limit the automatic termination of certain terms, they must do so in clear language.
Where the parties entered an agreement which provided for the termination of maintenance payments only upon wife’s death or remarriage or at the end of ten years, the parties did not intend to conclude that cohabitation was a condition for termination of maintenance under the settlement agreement.
As of the effective date of this Act, parties were allowed to enter into written separation agreements in accordance with 750 ILCS 5/502 which extended maintenance beyond the terminating events of subsection (b).
The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to terminate maintenance by former husband to former wife completely where the parties had agreed to the amount in a contractual agreement prior to the divorce.

Where two parties enter into a marital settlement agreement, and where performance of the agreement is carried out, notwithstanding the dismissal of the divorce proceedings, the agreement is a valid allocation of marital and non-marital property rights.
The husband’s assumption of car loan payments was in the nature of a property settlement in lieu of maintenance and did not terminate when the wife remarried, because the judgment provided that the husband would pay the loan according to its current schedule, the loan was for a specific sum to be paid over a specific period of time, except for the husband’s payment of the marital debts, each party would surrender all claims to maintenance and all claims to the property of the other spouse, the marital property was divided by the court giving consideration to whether the appointment was in lieu of maintenance, and neither the label attached nor the method of payment prescribed in the judgment conclusively determined the nature of the award.
Where the parties to a divorce have voluntarily adjusted their property rights and their agreement is then incorporated into a judgment, the parties are bound by the settlement; however, such an agreement of the parties will be vacated for fraud, coercion or if the settlement is unfair, inequitable and unjust.
Unless plaintiff established special equities in defendant’s property, she was not entitled to both a lump sum settlement and periodic support payments.

If parties to a marital settlement agreement intend, on dissolution, to preclude judicial modification of maintenance as to amount, it may be better practice to do so in clear and express terms in a paragraph separate from that limiting termination of maintenance. In re Brent
While maintenance provision are modifiable upon a showing of a substantial change in circumstances, property settlement provisions are not, unless a court finds the execution of the settlement agreement was accompanied by some element of fraud, coercion or misrepresentation. In re Munford
Where the agreement contained no provision which specifically precluded modification, the agreement was modifiable. In re Martino
Once an agreement is embodied in a divorce decree, its terms will not be modified absent fraud, coercion or contrariness to public policy. In re Roth.
The power of the court to modify periodic payments of maintenance and child support is not diminished because the amount of payments was fixed by a settlement agreement agreed to by the parties and incorporated in the decree. Potocki v. Potocki