Questions and Answers of the Day – Florida’s New Child Support Law
Each day I feature a listener question sent through one of these methods.
E-mail: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Does the new maintenance law only apply to new cases or does it apply retrospectively?
bottom line: As one of the last two bills Governor DeSantis signed into law this year, the Marriage Dissolution Law immediately brought about the most significant changes in child support payments in Florida history. The headline news surrounding the new law is that it abolishes life support in Florida, and it does, although the reforms go well beyond the possible length of alimony payments. In answer to your question, yes, the new law only applies to new alimony cases – therefore no, it is not retroactive, all previously decided alimony rules remain in effect, although there may be a possible limitation due to the new law. The wording of the law states that it will apply to all initial petitions for dissolution of marriage filed or pending on or after July 1, 2023, the date the law came into force. What will change with the new law…
With the abolition of permanent maintenance, the new law provides for four different types of maintenance regimes to be applied in the future. These four are:
- Temporary: Short-term bridging gap as determined by the judge
- Bridging: Up to two years for spouse transition
- Rehabilitation: Up to 5 years to allow the spouse to become self-sufficient
- Lasting: up to 50% of a short-term marriage, 60% of a medium-term marriage, and up to 75% of a long-term marriage
In addition to deciding what type of alimony can be paid out, the judge will also decide whether the payments will be in the form of a lump sum or a periodic payment. All in all, there are ten factors judges must consider when making decisions about alimony — including a spouse’s fidelity. These factors are:
- fidelity of a spouse
- If there is a proven need for financial support from a spouse
- The length of the marriage
- age and well-being
- Income of both parties from all sources
- employability, education and employability
- Contribution of each party to the marriage
- Consideration for children/family (if any)
- Mitigating circumstances as determined by the judge
- Accrued Retirement Benefits/Income
Most of these speak for themselves or are very specific to a couple’s situation, but the biggest change that comes with today’s question is duration. While there is no longer a lifetime alimony in Florida, the duration of the payouts is broken down into three categories:
- Short-term: Less than ten years
- Average term: 10-20 years
- Long term: Over 20 years
So how long can the alimony payments take, up to 4.5 years for a nine year marriage, 9 years for a 15 year marriage and 15 years for a 20 year marriage. The other big change is how alimony payments are supposed to be calculated – I won’t go into those details for now. While there are many people campaigning on both sides of this issue, in short, the reforms aim to reduce a spouse’s ability to bear the causality of the marriage’s end and to benefit financially from doing so on End of marriage has done a literal cost to her ex.
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