Category Archives: Alimony
Can You Bring Back the Alimony Gravy Train After It Has Departed?
All alimony awards are modifiable unless the alimony order is not modifiable; this only happens if, during mediation, the parties agree to waive the right to modify the alimony order. In practice, most alimony modifications go in only one direction, the direction that favors the paying spouse. When the courts agree to modify an… Read More »
How Long Must You Financially Support Your Disabled Ex-Spouse After a Brief Marriage?
Couples take wedding vows to stay together in sickness and in health, but often, chronic ill health erodes relationships, and sometimes it leads to divorce. When this happens, this divorce court must uphold the principle of equitable distribution while accounting for the fact that one of the spouses cannot reenter the workforce, even though… Read More »
Does an Alimony Award Have to Put You on Equal Footing With Your Ex-Spouse to Be Fair?
Equitable distribution, where the goal is to distribute the couple’s marital property and debts fairly, but not necessarily equally, varies depending on the length of the marriage. If the marriage was brief, the goal is to disentangle the parties’ finances as if they had never been married. If they were married for 17 years… Read More »
Modifying Your Alimony Obligations After You Retire
Florida no longer has permanent alimony, but a substantial portion of the people who pay and receive alimony are above the age of 60. The new trend is toward gray divorce, where people over 50 divorce after 20 years or more of marriage. If the parties had unequal incomes, this can mean that one… Read More »
Alimony for People Who Can’t Catch a Break in Life
When you search for information related to family law or estate planning, you can easily get the feeling that Google thinks that Internet users have more money than they do. The estate planning stuff talks about revocable trusts and the annual gift tax exclusion, when your only option is to work until your old… Read More »
Terminating Alimony Obligations Because Your Ex-Spouse Is in a Supportive Relationship With a New Partner
Before there was clickbait to bring out the worst in everyone at every moment, if you wanted to see people’s worst side, you had to mention the word “alimony” in conversation; suddenly, your otherwise mild-mannered interlocutor would say the worst things imaginable about the opposite sex, even if your interlocutor had never been divorced,… Read More »
Divorce and the One-Client Business
Children who grew up in the 1980s will remember the books of Richard Scarry, where two-page spreads depicted, in Where’s Waldo levels of detail, a town where everyone is doing something. The point, which children received enthusiastically, is that every occupation contributes to society. When one person bakes bread, one plants cucumbers, one sews… Read More »
What Counts as an Involuntary Reduction in Income?
Being your own boss sounds like fun until your dream of running your own business comes true. Suddenly, all the problems of the business are your problems and no one else’s. If the business is not financially solvent, neither are you, and by extension, neither is your spouse. Anyone who has tried their hand… Read More »
What Is the Difference Between Rehabilitative Alimony and Bridge the Gap Alimony?
By now, you have heard that Florida no longer awards permanent alimony, but you were probably not a candidate for alimony anyway. If your spouse was out of the workforce for most of your marriage, or if her income is a fraction of yours, you will probably have to pay some alimony, but perhaps… Read More »
The Tax Consequences of Alimony in Florida
Everywhere you look in Florida, there are reptiles that can kill you, such as the American alligator and, in certain parts of Miami-Dade County, also the American crocodile, plus others that are harmless but look plenty scary, such as the green iguana. Surprisingly, these do not make Floridians’ list of favorite subjects to complain… Read More »