Changing a Judgment or Order by Agreement

You do not always need a hearing to change a judgment or temporary order of the Probate and Family Court. If you and the other party in the case  agree about how the judgment or order should be changed, you can

• file your written agreement
• file a joint petition or motion and
• a proposed judgment or temporary order.

You do not need to serve a summons.

You will only have to go to a hearing if the judge orders one.

If the judge does not order a hearing, they will read the agreement and other papers and make a decision.

Get the General Information Sheet and the Checklist of Required Forms from the Probate and Family Court website and the special forms you need:

• Joint Petition to Modify a judgement or temporary order
• Agreement To Change a Judgment or Temporary Order
• Proposed Judgment/Temporary Order on Petition/Motion to Change

Important

• Do not sign any agreement if you do not understand everything it says.
• Do not sign an agreement if you feel the other party is pressuring you.
• Do not sign an agreement if you think that the other party is trying to mislead you.
• If you do not understand something in an agreement, talk to a lawyer before you sign it.

Note

If you have trouble getting these forms from the court website, save them to your computer first:

• Right click the link and pick
  
  • "save link as..",
  • "save file as"
  • "download linked file" or
  • "download linked file as".
• You need the latest version of the free program Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the forms and fill them out.