Canceling a divorce agreement – when and how?
Agreements should be respected, this rule also applies when we enter into a contract with a particular supplier or with an apartment owner. However, surprisingly, in the field of family law, contract law also plays a central and important role.
In the family sector there are many and varied contracts such as: Agreement Finance or agreement Custody Children.
Another contract that exists in the family sphere is what is known as a divorce agreement.
Divorce Agreement It is an agreement made between spouses who wish to end their marriage. It is an agreement that can also include custody arrangements, Property division, the manner of performing the divorce and even the collection of fees Foods Two months.
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As noted, agreements must be honored. However, there are exceptions to honoring an agreement. Examples of such exceptions are cases of deception, extortion, coercion, and more. It is reasonable to assume that a person who is threatened with violence to sign a contract will be able to claim, when the threat ends, that the contract does not bind him because it was signed under duress.
A true story of a divorced couple…
The Family Court in Ashdod, as part of a proceeding Tehas (Ashed) 42509-09-11 Father n Mother, discusses the agreement Divorce Which is cut off between man and woman.
The agreement stipulated alimony of 3,500 NIS per month, the transfer of the man’s rights in the residential apartment to the woman, custody of two times a week in favor of the man, Divorce by consent, and dividing the remaining joint property equally.
The divorce agreement was given the force of a judgment through Home Family Law. However, six months after receiving the validation, the father filed a lawsuit to cancel the agreement on the grounds of deception.
To wit: “The father claimed that the agreement was signed under pressure, without him understanding the meaning of his obligation under it; according to him, the wife and her attorney created in him the impression that her attorney also represented him, without him knowing anything about the claims she filed against him, and they were never communicated to him.”
The woman, on the other hand, completely denied all of the divorced man’s claims.
According to her, he was not presented with any representation that her lawyer also represented him, and even more so, he was the one who proposed to transfer his rights in the apartment.
In the woman’s opinion, this is a fair and balanced divorce agreement, and there is no reason to cancel it.
Cancellation of a contract that has received the force of a judgment
In the circumstances, this is not just an agreement, but an agreement that has been given the force of a judgment. This means that we are interested in a judgment.
The second meaning is that it is not enough to unilaterally cancel the contract, but one must also resort to the legal channel of canceling the judgment.
It is possible to annul a judgment that granted validity to a compromise between aggrieved parties, but “the court must exercise extra caution in this matter and be convinced that there are weighty reasons that justify the annulment. This is due to the great importance that must be attributed to the finality of the compromise agreement as ending the conflict between the parties.”
In addition, whoever claims deception in the conclusion of a contract has the burden of proving two conditions: one that he was deceived, and the second that without the deception the contract would not have been signed at all.
The court’s decision regarding the cancellation of the agreement
The court first addressed the fact that approval of a settlement agreement in the Family Court is not a technical procedure, but rather orders the judge sitting in court to carefully examine the terms of the agreement, and to check with the parties whether they are familiar with the details of the agreement and agree to it.
Under the circumstances, the court determined, while referring to the process of approving the agreement between the parties, that the agreement was examined by a judicial body, which verified with the husband whether he was aware of the details of the agreement he signed.
The court was impressed with the husband “because he was a quick-witted man. His answers were somewhat polished, and it was obvious that he was a man who could not be deceived.”
The court ruled that in the process of approving the agreement in court, the woman’s attorney was presented as her lawyer only.
Therefore, in the circumstances, the court wondered how it would be conceivable “that if he did believe, up until the date of approval of the agreement, that The lawyer Represents both parties, and if ignorance of this fact constitutes such a fundamental error, why was he not called out when the plaintiff’s attorney announced that he represented the plaintiff only? Why did he calmly respond that the agreement was acceptable to him, why did he explain that he had reviewed the agreement at home and made his comments? To the plaintiff, the solutions.”
As for the content of the contract, the court rejected the husband’s claims, as no evidence was found on his part of deception or ignorance of the legal situation and details of the agreement.
The court also rejected the husband’s claim that the terms of the agreement were unusually unreasonable. From the testimony heard before him and documents, it appears that he is a businessman who earns approximately NIS 50,000 per month, which strengthens the wife’s claim that the husband was the dominant economic figure in the marriage, and therefore the agreement balances this issue.
Therefore, the husband’s claim to annul the divorce agreement was rejected.
The conclusion…
In any agreement, including when drafting and signing the divorce agreement, it is always recommended to consult and be represented by Lawyer specializing in family law.
The rule is that contracts must be honored, and they will not be easily canceled by the Family Court, especially not an agreement that has received the force of a judgment.
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