Mediating your Connecticut divorce has many benefits. Mediation generally saves you time and money. Additionally, mediation often helps preserve a respectful relationship with your former spouse, which can be especially important if you share children.
However, resolving a divorce through mediation and then having second thoughts afterward is not uncommon. You typically cannot change your mind after mediation and request that the agreement be nullified simply because you change your mind about what you want.
Once a mediation agreement is signed by both spouses, it becomes a court order and is legally binding. However, a mediation agreement could be overturned in limited circumstances.
Unconscionability and fraud
Feeling that you got an unfair deal is not enough to challenge a mediation agreement, unless you can prove unconscionability. This means that the terms of the agreement are so majorly one-sided that no reasonable person could say that they are fair to both parties.
For example, an agreement that states your spouse receives every asset and you take on every debt could be viewed as unconscionable. But regretting that you gave up the house in exchange for a retirement account of the same value and now decide you want the house, you may have a hard time proving that agreement was unconscionable.
Fraud or misrepresentation could overturn a mediation agreement. You must prove that your spouse intentionally concealed material facts that impacted your decisions.
Duress and lack of capacity
Proving you agreed to the mediation agreement’s terms under duress or lacked capacity to consent to the terms are other circumstances that could undo the agreement.
Duress means being forced to sign the agreement due to threats or coercion. Mental illness, intoxication or other factors that show you lacked the capacity to understand what you were signing might help you make a lack of capacity argument.
Revoking a mediation agreement under any of these legal grounds is usually challenging. Courts tend to rule in favor of upholding mediation agreements. If you want to challenge the terms of an agreement, you must have convincing evidence.