Seperation Agreement Question

[kip77]

Pennsylvania


I hope this is an easy question. Me and my soon to be ex-wife have come to an agreement on our divorce. We sat down and wrote out a rough draft for the separation agreement. But, we are not filing divorce papers until after the holidays (Christmas). We are, however, going to have our separation agreement and child custody/support agreement finalized and notarized. We both want to have the agreements notarized before we file to protect both of us. My question is: Once we have the agreements notarized is it binding? The reason we want to do the agreement like this is so we are both protected in some way. We are going to file a no fault divorce in the beginning of January. So far we both have been very decent to each other, but you never know what the near future may hold. We just want to get this done as soon as and as mutually as possible. Thank you in advance, Kip

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by kip77

Pennsylvania


I hope this is an easy question. Me and my soon to be ex-wife have come to an agreement on our divorce. We sat down and wrote out a rough draft for the separation agreement. But, we are not filing divorce papers until after the holidays (Christmas). We are, however, going to have our separation agreement and child custody/support agreement finalized and notarized. We both want to have the agreements notarized before we file to protect both of us. My question is: Once we have the agreements notarized is it binding? The reason we want to do the agreement like this is so we are both protected in some way. We are going to file a no fault divorce in the beginning of January. So far we both have been very decent to each other, but you never know what the near future may hold. We just want to get this done as soon as and as mutually as possible. Thank you in advance, Kip

None of it is enforceable until a judge signs off on it. However, it does show intent and a judge may sign off on it (if its fair and doesn't contain anything legally questionable) even if one of you changes their mind before it gets in front of a judge. You should submit it to the court with your divorce filings.

Some things that a judge might not sign off on:

Child support figure that are way off from guideline figures.
Clauses that state if certain events happen in the future that child custody would change. (child custody has to be decided, at the time, based on the best interests of the child at that time).
Property settlements that are clearly skewed.
Anything that is illegal.
etc.

[kip77]

Thanks for the reply,

We have come up with what we think is reasonable. We both want this to be as mutual as possible for our girls. We are using a copy of an agreement from a friend. It is very close to what we have agreed on. We just didn't want to go through it for nothing if one of us gets mad and wants to back out. This agreement would take a lot of strees of of our shoulders. We live in a small town and have already encounterd the bad side of rumors.