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For my divorce we opted to go the mediation route, mainly as a result of not wanting to spend every dime we had at the time on lawyer fees and starting over with nothing. As a result, i ended up agreeing to a support COLA schedule that is way out of alignment with what i recently learned is standard in NY. I agreed to annual COLA adjustments based on the BLS increase statistics but what it appears in NY is that these adjustments are only required to be applied when the sum of consecutive years adjustments is 10%. Given i am paying support and maintenance for a stay-at-home mom, this is a significant amount of money. My question is, do i have any grounds to request and likely receive a modification in the agreement i signed to get future adjustments more in line with what is actually required? I had assumed the lawyer that ran the mediation would be neutral but at least make suggestions reasonably in line with the legal requirements but that appears to not have been the case. Or maybe i am misunderstanding the law on the matter.

thanks!

I don't know if you can get the agreement changed, but right now we are very close to deflation rather than inflation. Going by actual figures, a COLA could actually cause CS/SS to go down.

But, massive inflation is possible in the near future. 10% a year might end up a bargain at that point.

Out of curiosity, how much is your agreed upon yearly COLA increase, and for how many years. I'm a stats guy, and want to figure the amount of increase by the time the order is over.