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Florida Alimony Overhaul In The Works
March 3, 2016
After years of wrangling, lawmakers are poised to approve an alimony overhaul that would do away with permanent alimony and change the way judges decide how much time children should spend with their divorced parents.
The time-sharing portion of the alimony measure was at the center of a bitter disagreement between two prominent Republican lawmakers — Senate budget chief Tom Lee, who wanted it included in the bill, and House Rules Chairman Ritch Workman, who opposed it. The disagreement caused alimony proposals to stall last year.
While Lee and Workman reached consensus on the measure this week, changes inserted into the Senate proposal on Tuesday haven’t satisfied the Family Law Section of The Florida Bar, which remains opposed to the time-sharing provision.
Like last year’s legislation, both chambers are again proposing to establish a formula for judges to use when deciding alimony payments for divorcing couples.
Lee proposed an amendment on Tuesday that he said “softens” the child-sharing component of the Senate bill. The amendment did away with language that would have established a state policy that a schedule “that provides for substantially equal time-sharing with both parents” — an issue known as a legal “presumption” — is in children’s best interest.
Instead, the Senate measure (SB 668) now instructs judges to “begin with the premise that a minor child should spend approximately equal amounts of time with each parent” and instructs the court to formulate a time-sharing plan based on a variety of factors.
Lee, whose wife is a judge, has pushed for the time-sharing changes to reduce animosity in child custody cases.
“It takes some of the ambiguity out of the statute but not all of it. The language goes from a presumption to a premise, and it no longer says 50-50 (time sharing). It’s approximately, so it gives the court a little bit of room, and then it retains all of the criteria and asks them to inform the litigants of the reason the court has arrived at its decision,” Lee, R-Brandon, said in an interview Wednesday.
Workman said he would have preferred that the alimony bill not address time sharing, but called the revamped Senate proposal a “good compromise” that would likely get a House floor vote, if approved by the upper chamber.
“It moves away from the presumptive language that I think was very detrimental in previous versions of time share,” Workman, R-Melbourne, said. “The merged family-law bill does seem to accomplish both what the members of the Senate wanted when it comes to time share and what the members of the House wanted when it comes to alimony reform.”
The proposals would eliminate certain types of alimony, including permanent alimony, and create formulas for alimony payments. The duration of alimony payments would be based on the number of years of marriage, while the amount of the payments would rely on a couple’s gross income — the higher earner’s salary minus the earnings of the spouse seeking alimony.
The proposals do not contain a retroactivity provision that prompted Gov. Rick Scott to veto an alimony reform measure three years ago, but critics of the overhaul maintain that the changes would hurt older women who stayed at home to raise children and then have a hard time finding jobs.
Workman has worked for years with alimony reform advocates and the Bar’s Family Law Section to revamp what all sides called Florida’s outdated alimony statutes.
The Family Law Section endorsed the alimony changes, but objected to the time-sharing provision, a position Lee’s new language hasn’t changed.
Switching from a “presumption” of equal time sharing to a “premise” of the same does little to change the impact of the proposal, lawyers for the Family Law Section argued.
The revised Senate bill would favor one parent who “has the financial resources to disprove this presumption” of equal time sharing, Elisha Roy, past chair of the Family Law Section, said in a text.
“The unintended result of this presumption is a situation where many cases will resolve with no child support being awarded to either parent, leaving one parent in a situation where they may have the child a great deal more of the time because the other parent does not exercise the timesharing they are presumed to get, without the financial resources to support the child,” Roy said.
The changes would likely cause an increase in child-custody litigation, Roy predicted.
Workman said it was “tough to hear” that the Family Law Section opposed the measure, but that he’s heard from other divorce lawyers who support it.
“So I feel comfortable enough that is a step in the right direction because it’s not universally rejected by all of those that work in the business,” he said.
by Dara Kam, The News Servie of Florida
Comments
15 Responses to “Florida Alimony Overhaul In The Works”
What happens to some of us who are disabled and cannot work. Is there anything in the bill about what happens to us. My husband left me when I got disabled and now we are divorcing. Is there anything to protect me?
Governor Rick Scott should sign SB 668 into law.
Four years ago, my ex-wife and I divorced. She petitioned for permanent alimony. Fair is fair, we were married for 18 years.
Currently I am paying $1000 per month, HALF of my Social Security Disability Income, as permanent alimony to my ex-spouse. My ex-spouse is a healthy, educated and employed PHYSICIAN.
She receives HALF of my Social Security Disability Income. Meanwhile, my ex-spouse pays ME less than $100 per month child support. This is not nearly fair.
Current alimony laws are extremely inequitable. Child support is formula based and time limited, but alimony amounts and durations are at the whim of the judge.
The same judge who awarded me child support until our son is 18, awarded my physician ex-wife permanent alimony despite her greater income.
Alimony discourages both the payor and recipient from working, achieving their potential or remarriage. Temporary assistance is certainly needed by some to transition from married to single, but it must be equitable and certainly not permanent.
This is a fairness issue, not a man/woman issue, not a rich/poor issue, not a young/old issue and not a black/white issue. Men and women are equally able to work in today’s society and equally able to pay alimony. Our society has changed and so must our laws.
@ stephanie, you are 100% right. Most of the time, it is by design to be used as an insurance policy, and punishment for the husband when they split. People who draw alimony are leaches, pure and simple.
When I was a young person and a teenager, my parents fought bitterly about my mother not working. My father had suggested she work part-time, she refused. My father, as a last resort, suggested she volunteer with her free time, just so she would get out of the house during the day. She refused that, too. And now she’s been living off a six-figure alimony for 17 years: so she got what she was gunning for–a live-in-boyfriend, a completely paid off house, a “bubble” existence, completely insulated from the worries that normal people have.
I absolutely refuse to believe that most couples “agreed” on the future recipient not working. Any practical person knows that a family of two earners, even if one if part-time, is more secure and able to weather emergencies and crises than one.
Backers want you to believe this is a ‘worker v. non-worker’ issue but it is NOT. At 56 years young, I worked before, during and after my divorce in 2009. I have gone back to school, I have taken courses and I currently WORK as a legal assistant for a collaborative divorce attorney who also opposes this bill. Backers call any attorney who opposes this bill a renegade attorney. Although this bill doesn’t say RETROACTIVE in the bill it certainly is. The 10% trigger, which they call a substantial change in circumstances, allows for a modification of alimony if I were to realize a 10% increase in my pay. That would allow my former spouse, who earned $356,000. in 2015 to take me back to court if my $16.00/hour salary increases by 10%. So which is it? Do we want to encourage women to ‘reinvent’ themselves after a divorce or do we want to penalize them when they do?
John, stop throwing your bible quotes at everyone and pull your head from the sand. Many people struggle to keep their marriages but there are those certain things that cannot be repaired. You say most are quitters so please show us what research you have to prove your fact?
John,
Marriages are not always repairable. When you have a household full of animosity and strife with kids involved, the kids are hurt more by having to listen to the bickering and fighting. Best then to move on and separate.
Child sharing should be split between both parents. It provides psychological support for the child that stands in the middle of two divorcees. I believe that alimony should be available for temporary support to provide a financial adjustment period for a lower income ex-spouse. By no means should it be permanent. Permanent alimony encourages harassment, laziness, and the inability for the payee to become progress in their life because they become dependent on their ex-spouse income.
Children thrive on stability.
This ammendment is a bad idea. This bill doesn’t recognize the person who put thier life/career on hold to stay home & raise a family. Which I’m sure is a decision that both parties agreed to. There’s no compensation(retirement plan which you would get had a outside job been done) for the one who actually sacrificed so much so that there kids we taken care of. I do not agree with this particular order overhaul. The current one needs work, but this one would be 2 steps backward.
Divorce is saying the end. Alimony is an antique idea from the 1950’s when wives stayed at home. I would have died of embarrassment if I had received an alimony check If a woman works, she can live on her money.
Child support is another issue. Parents need to split the costs of the child’s needs.
It is not about having extra money. It is about taking care of the child.
This is 2016. It is certainly time for a change. Some women are truly crazy, getting married for the wrong reason. I did. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings! Yes, I wrote this.
Alimony needs to completely disappear. Once you decide to divorce, nobody should be responsible for the other party. Completely ridiculous. If you want to get a job, nobody is stopping you…..go get a job. Your husband doesn’t like it, divorce him, but it isn’t his responsibility to keep paying your bills. Stupid law that should never have existed in the first place.
You sir are clueless! There are many reasons for divorces and the parents are not quitters. Staying in a destructive marriage so you can call yourself a good Christian is about as un-Christian as they come. The bible also says for you not to judge others so why don’t you spend some time practicing that!
The alimony issue is a worker vs. non-worker issue, not a man/woman, rich/poor, Democrat/Republican or black/white issue. Marriage takes 2 people. Divorce takes only one person. It’s time we stop penalizing Florida’s workers for the sole reason that they work and produce an income and have “the ability to pay,” as Florida’s divorce laws currently state. It’s time to stop rewarding healthy, college educated and very capable alimony recipients, both men and women, from living off the efforts of the worker spouse. If we want equality in our state, let’s begin with our families. Both spouses should be treated equally. The non-working spouse living off the efforts of the working spouse, with absolutely no incentive to ever move on with their life through re-marriage, following a career path or simply having a job like most Floridians do, is not healthy for our society.
Family law attorneys are paid for litigation. The more ambiguity to the law, the more money they make. The new bill has guidelines that our judges will use to make judgements around the state more uniform. Today, it’s the wild, wild west when it comes to consistency between courtrooms and judges.
Current “child custody” litigation can take years, cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and create more emotional damage to the children and both parents than is necessary. The safety of the children is of utmost importance, but the roughly equal sharing of the children helps them grow up better adjusted than being used as pawns between bitter parents and attorneys.
Exceptions can be made by the judges in exceptional cases, but the majority of cases are not exceptional.
Thank you for covering this very important topic. Let’s Get To Work is our Governor’s motto. This includes every capable worker, including those healthy, educated recipients, both men and women, living off of their ex-spouse’s labor.
I feel so sorry for the children that have to go through this in their young lives, being pulled back and forth because many parent’s give up on their marriage and don’t fight for it, because they are quitters, not all, but most are, some have a legitimate reason, but most do not. The Bible says that children are a heritage of the Lord. Children need stability in their lives!