Articles Posted in Divorce

You have probably heard about divorced couples engaging in bitter legal battles over which one of them will have custody of the couple’s children. You might also know someone who stays in an unhappy marriage because he or she fears that, upon divorce, he or she will be ordered to pay hefty child support payments…

Florida is one of only a few states in which judges can award permanent alimony to the spouse with the lower income or earning potential as part of a divorce decree. For a novelist with a certain mindset, Florida’s spousal support laws could be a plot point in a farce about materialistic social climbers and…

Alimony, spousal support, and spousal maintenance all refer to money paid by one ex-spouse to another after a divorce. The idea behind alimony is that, if one spouse depended on the other financially during the marriage, that spouse cannot become financially independent immediately after divorce. Florida alimony laws are quite favorable to the spouse receiving…

In Florida, children rarely testify in court. Even when the children are old enough to provide useful testimony, judges always avoid having minors testify in family law cases unless there is no other alternative. Divorce and custody battles are stressful enough for children and teenagers, and being questioned in a courtroom could cause them unnecessary…

Although there have been several recent attempts to abolish permanent alimony in Florida, all those recent attempts have failed.  Permanent alimony is still alive and well in the State of Florida. So what does this mean to you, either as a potential recipient, or as a potential payor of alimony?  Permanent alimony is generally, as…

All income available to the recipient of alimony should be taken into consideration prior to the court assessing the amount of alimony to be paid. Income from all sources reduce the “needs” of the spouse who is claiming alimony from the other party.  “Needs versus ability to pay” is the general standard utilized by the…

Child support, under Florida law, is initially established by applying the Florida child support guidelines.  The child support guidelines are applied to not only a final hearing in a dissolution of marriage action, but are also applicable in temporary support proceedings Florida Statute 61.30(1)(a) specifically states that the child support guideline amount is utilized to…

A trial court in a divorce proceeding lacks the legal authority to order the sale of jointly owned real property, unless there was a specific pleading asking for partition of the real property. Partition is a request that is made by one of the parties to sell jointly owned real property.  The court in the…

Bonus income can be paid on a regular and routine basis, or it could be paid for an isolated event. The law is clear however, that in order to include bonus income in a child support calculation, there must be evidence that the bonus is regular and continuous before it can be included in a…

Extreme caution should be exercised when a party in a dissolution of marriage action seeks temporary emergency relief without giving notice to the other party. This is what is commonly known as ex parte relief, which is seeking relief without providing any notice whatsoever to the other side.  These types of proceedings are at substantial…