Modification & Enforcement Lawyer in Austin, Texas

Orders are written for the life you had then

A divorce decree or custody order is a snapshot. It was built on the jobs, the incomes, the school, the ages your family had on the day it was signed. Lives move. Orders do not, until a court signs a new one.

That gap between the order and real life shows up in two ways. Either the order needs to change, which is a modification, or the order is fine and the other side is not following it, which calls for enforcement. Both are filed in the court that issued the original order, and for most Austin families that is Travis or Williamson County.

One rule sits above everything on this page: nothing adjusts itself, and informal deals do not count. Until a judge signs the new order, the old one is the one that is enforceable, whatever the two of you agreed over text messages.

Modifying child support

Texas gives you two separate doors into a support modification, and you only need one of them:

• A material and substantial change since the order was signed. A job lost or gained, income sharply up or down, a child’s medical or educational needs changing, the possession schedule changing in practice.
• The three-year rule. If three years have passed and the ordered amount differs from today’s guideline by 20 percent or $100 a month, section 156.401 lets you modify without proving anything else changed. One exception matters here: if your current amount comes from an agreed order that already departs from the guideline, section 156.401(a-1) closes this route and you are back to proving a material and substantial change.

The cap on net resources rose from $9,200 to $11,700 in September 2025. That matters where the paying parent’s monthly net resources were above the old $9,200 ceiling, because those orders were built against a lower cap and can now sit well outside the 20 percent band without anything changing in either household. Where net resources were below the old ceiling, the increase on its own does not move the guideline figure.

Timing has a cost. Support keeps accruing under the old order until the new one is signed, and in most cases a court can change the amount only for payments falling due after the other parent is served with citation or files an appearance, whichever comes first. Filing on its own does not stop the clock. That is why we file and serve together: every week between the two is a week at the old number that nobody can fix.

Modifying custody and possession

Conservatorship and the possession schedule can be modified where it is in the child’s best interest and one of three things is true: circumstances have materially and substantially changed since the order was rendered, or since any mediated or collaborative settlement agreement behind it was signed, whichever came first; or the child is at least 12 and has told the judge in chambers who they would prefer to decide where they live; or the parent with that exclusive right has voluntarily given up primary care and possession for at least six months. The changes courts see most: a parent relocating, a work schedule that no longer matches the exchanges, a child’s activities outgrowing the plan, or a home that has become unstable.

A child who is twelve or older can, on a party’s motion, speak to the judge in chambers about where they want to live. The judge listens; the child does not decide. But that conversation carries more weight than most parents realise: a child of 12 or older telling the judge their preference is itself one of the three grounds that lets a modification case be brought, without having to prove anything else has changed.

One guardrail to know about: asking to change which parent has the exclusive right to decide where the child lives, within a year of the earlier of the date the order was rendered or the date any mediated or collaborative settlement agreement behind it was signed, needs a sworn affidavit under section 156.102, and only specific grounds qualify, such as danger to the child, the parent holding that right seeking or consenting to the change, or that parent having voluntarily given up primary care and possession for at least six months. It is a deliberate brake on repeat litigation, and it is why the first order is worth getting right.

Enforcing child support

Unpaid support becomes arrears, and arrears in Texas earn six percent simple interest a year. They do not fade, and bankruptcy does not clear them. The tools for collecting are broad:

• Wage withholding ordered straight to the employer under chapter 158
• Interception of federal tax refunds and lottery winnings
• Liens on bank accounts, vehicles and property
• Suspension of driver’s, professional and hunting licences under chapter 232
• Contempt of court, which can mean jail for wilful non-payment

Contempt is powerful and technical. The motion has to list each missed payment precisely, and because jail is on the table, the other side gets criminal-style protections. Sloppy enforcement motions lose on procedure, not on the facts. Drafting them properly is most of the work.

There is also a clock, and it is really two clocks. To ask a court to hold the other parent in contempt over unpaid support, the motion must be filed within two years of the date the child becomes an adult or the date the support obligation ends under the order or by law. To have the arrears confirmed and turned into a money judgment, the window is ten years from that same date. Miss the two-year mark and contempt is gone, though the money judgment usually is not. Miss the ten-year mark and neither is available.

Enforcing possession and access

Support is not the only order a court will enforce. If the other parent denies your weekends, keeps the child through your holiday period, or simply does not show up for exchanges, that denial is itself enforceable by contempt, and the court can award make-up time on top. There is a deadline here too, and it is the shortest one on this page: a motion asking the court to hold the other parent in contempt for denying possession or access must be filed within six months after the child becomes an adult or the right of possession ends under the order.

The evidence wins these cases. Show up at the exchange point at the ordered time, note the date, keep the messages. A record of specific denials reads very differently in court than a general complaint that visits keep falling through.

And the mirror image of the earlier rule applies: being denied your possession time does not let you stop paying support. Texas treats the two as separate obligations. Withholding one creates a second enforcement case, with you on the wrong side of it.

Agreed changes are still the cheapest kind

Not every modification is a fight. When both parents can see the order no longer fits, an agreed modification gets drafted, signed and entered without anyone testifying about anything. It is faster, it costs a fraction of a contested case, and the co-parenting relationship survives it.

Where the two of you are close but not quite there, mediation usually closes the gap in a single session. Victoria mediates these matters herself and settles most of them without a courtroom. The agreement that comes out of mediation is binding, and it becomes the new order once the judge signs it.

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