Your ability to pay played a big role in determining your initial alimony payments. If you’ve lost your ability to pay then you have a good chance of reducing your alimony. Corporate downsizing is a common reason for job loss requiring alimony modification. Employees often see their incomes grow over time with their experience.
The good news is that you can ask the Court to reduce alimony you pay if she doesn’t need as much money anymore. You can file a request to modify. You then can subpoena from her employer records showing her income. Both you and she will file financial affidavits.
Your physical health has declined and your ability to generate income has decreased as a result. If the income loss is temporary considering asking for a temporary change or suspension of your alimony. If however, all signs suggest that you’ll permanently make less money than ask for a permanent reduction or end of your alimony.
That’s because the alimony deduction will be rolled back with the new law. For a payor spouse who is ordered to pay 4K in alimony with an income of $150K that deduction was “worth” more than $1K a month! If you are set to lose money because of a tax return change, look at the rest of the scenario to see if a modification makes sense?
Alimony and child support are both set by the court. These orders remain in effect until they are changed. That is why a father whose hours have been cut or lost his job needs to file a petition with the court as soon as possible to have the level adjusted. If you fall behind on these payments, you can go to jail for contempt of court.
If your salary is reduced, you can ask the court to lower your alimony and child support amounts. Alimony is more likely to be reduced than child support. However, it is only possible in either case if the courts think that the request is reasonable.
Let’s suppose someone loses their job or quits their job during the divorce. The court now has to calculate permanent alimony levels as well as child support. The court may base alimony on your salary history, because they’re assuming you can earn that much if you really wanted to. Then the alimony will gather in arrears.
Alimony traditionally meant that a working father paid a now divorced mother to stay home with the children or supplemented her part-time income. However, alimony is gender-neutral in California. A stay at home father can request alimony from a working mother.
If a spouse earning $200,000 annually quits a job for the purpose of avoiding a large maintenance or child support obligation, the court can impute to that spouse the income that the spouse regularly earned during the marriage.
It is not uncommon for a spouse to quit or otherwise lose a job during the pendency of a divorce, particularly when spousal and/or child support is at issue.
If a spouse earning $200,000 annually qui ts a job for the purpose of avoiding a large maintenance or child support obligation, the court can impute to that spouse the income that the spouse regularly earned during the marriage. But to do this, the court needs evidence – so it is important the other spouse gather sufficient evidence surrounding the loss of employment and the ability to procure similar employment in a reasonable period of time. Sometimes, this requires the spouse to hire a vocational rehabilitation expert to evaluate what the spouse could earn in the existing job market. Also, the court will look at the earning history and educational background of the spouse and could come up with a composite average it finds reasonable to assign as income for the basis of maintenance and child support calculations.
In sum: don’t panic. Reach out to your lawyer as soon as possible to describe your situation. Your attorney can get in contact with the court to get your spousal support adjusted. In times like these, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Courts are understanding and sympathetic to situations out our control.
Spousal support, otherwise known as alimony, is intended to maintain the economic status for the dependent spouse similar as experienced during the marriage. New Jersey family law has held that such a support obligation is always subject to modification or termination. [1] .
If you go to court and say, “I am no longer making $80,000 per year, because I am pursuing my life-long dream as a professional burger-flipper, please reduce my alimony.” The Court can say, “No, we know what you are capable of making, and for the purposes of alimony, we will set an income regardless of your situation.” [4]
If you are in the middle of a Chapter 13 repayment plan and you lose your job, all is not lost. Chapter 13 is designed to give you the opportunity to repay your debts based on the disposable income (i.e. income left over after paying your expenses) that you have available to you. Your payments are based both on the kind of debt you have (with mortgages and other secured debts requiring full payment) as well as on how much disposable income you actually have to put towards debt, both secured and unsecured.
If you make plan payments during the entire duration of your plan period, then many of your remaining debts will be discharged (wiped out) at the end of your case ( not all types of debts can be discharged, however).
When you file for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, you enter into a repayment plan that lasts between three and five years. You use your income to make plan payments to the bankruptcy trustee, usually on a monthly basis. The amount of your payments depend on your "disposable income.". The trustee then repays your creditors -- in part or in full depending on ...
While the same general rules will be in place regarding full payment of secured debts (as well as full payment of certain other debts such as child support payments), the low-priority unsecured creditors will simply receive less money under the new repayment structure than they would have had the job loss not occurred.
What if your ex-spouse’s living expenses have actually decreased? For example, you ex-spouse moves out of the condo in Downtown St. Petersburg away from the city and finds comparable housing in Hernando County? Now, all of her living expenses are significantly cheaper. And your ex has made it clear this is a permanent move. If you can show that the reduction in living expenses is permanent you have the ability to seek a reduction in your spousal support obligation. However, if the move by your ex is only temporary, the court will not change the alimony amount. Another example of decreased living expenses is when your ex is living full time with a significant other. Similar to a cohabitation argument, the contribution to joint expenses on a regular and recurring basis can justify reducing support.
If the income loss is temporary considering asking for a temporary change or suspension of your alimony. If however, all signs suggest that you’ll permanently make less money than ask for a permanent reduction or end of your alimony.
The law allows the payor spouse to terminate or reduce his alimony obligation if he can show that a supportive relationship exists between the payee spouse and a new significant other. The burden is to prove your case “more likely than not”, or 51% more likely.
In the old days, the ex-receiving alimony would shack up with a new man or woman but not get married. And the ex-paying alimony would keep having to pay. Florida lawmakers fixed this problem a few years ago by adding the cohabitation statute. The law was intended to end alimony if the person receiving payments lives with another person in a way that suggests they are intending to live like a married couple. “If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, then its a duck”. The law allows the payor spouse to terminate or reduce his alimony obligation if he can show that a supportive relationship exists between the payee spouse and a new significant other. The burden is to prove your case “more likely than not”, or 51% more likely. For a full guide on cohabitation and alimony modification check out our article here.
That’s because the alimony deduction will be rolled back with the new law.
With that said, you don’t have to liquidate your retirement to pay your alimony obligation.
Florida requires as a matter of law termination of alimony if the person receiving alimony gets remarried. Of course, many spouses receiving alimony are wise to this rule. They try to backdoor the rule by simply living with their significant other without remarrying, which leads to the next reason on your list: 7.
A married couple typically combines their assets and becomes accustomed to a certain standard of living. If the couple divorces later on, then the financial lifestyle they have enjoyed becomes at risk.
If necessary, Colorado law provides for spousal support payments, also known as maintenance or alimony, recognizing the need for both spouses to be financially independent after a divorce. Calculations for maintenance payments are typically based on the amount of income earned by each spouse. But what happens if the party paying alimony suddenly becomes unemployed and unable to make these regular payments?
If you can show that you have made valid efforts to gain new or similar employment, you may be granted an adjustment of maintenance.
You cannot simply decide to stop paying maintenance or only opt to pay a reduced amount without expecting to face any legal consequences.