Hey guys, Chris Denmon here.
I want to talk to you about what our firm does to help make sure our clients don’t get hosed on alimony in Florida divorces.
What Is Alimony In A Men’s Florida Divorce?
The court tries to try to figure out how much money the wife needs to be paid from the husband on a monthly basis to help her meet her monthly need.
And when we’re talking about her monthly need, the court wants to see if they can get the wife pretty close to where she was during the marriage.
So, that’s the framework that we’re starting from.
How Can A Tampa Men’s Divorce Attorney Help?
As Tampa men’s divorce lawyers, we look at all of the pieces that judges use when determining an alimony award. There are three major pieces in this puzzle.
- One big piece is the wife’s need. We can do some research, really hammer home the pennies, and show that the wife’s need is not what she claims.
Sometimes, we need to use an accountant.
But a lot of times it’s just getting down to the penny and getting very granular, especially if you’re in a situation where you guys have been relatively modest.
Maybe you’ve been doing a good job of saving money during your marriage. In that case, we’ll want to get really granular with those dollars because she’s going to perceive that her need is a lot more than what the numbers are going to show.
We’re going to get down to the pennies and get the numbers and show that her need isn’t as high as she thinks it is. So, that’s the first area that we can manipulate.
2. The second area is what is her contribution to her need, right?
Because that’s the first place the court wants to look — and if she was a stay-at- home spouse and didn’t work during the marriage, she’s going to say, “look, my contribution is zero.”
And you don’t want that to be the case, because if her contribution is zero that means her whole need has to come from you.
So, we’ll want to maximize what her contribution is going to be to her need.
And if she hasn’t worked in a while, or she’s been underemployed, or she’s only working part time, or with a little bit of training she could be ramped up and she’s going to be making more money, then that’s what we’ve got to work on proving.
And we can do that.
Sometimes we can do that just using third-party data, you know, going online and figuring out what’s the average hourly rate for a particular job that she’s suitable for in the area.
A lot of times we’ll want to go ahead and hire an expert witness, because it’s somebody who can shout at the judge if we need to or at least develop reports for us that will be very difficult for her to argue against.
So, that’s the second piece that we’ll look at that we can kind of manipulate to make sure you’re not getting hosed and are getting a good alimony resolution.
3. The third piece is, what is your ability to pay?
Because if you don’t have the ability to pay after you take care of your own needs, then you don’t have the ability to pay the dollars that she says she needs.
Under the law, the court is not allowed to make you pay more than you have the ability to pay.
So, the three pieces that we just discussed are those that you’ll want to look at.
Summary Of Men’s Florida Divorce Rights
Again, trying to recap, if you’ve lived relatively modestly or haven’t been crazy with your dollars and cents, just understand that she’s going to think that she needs more money than she really does.
And so, you’ll want to get granular with the dollars and the pennies and go back throughout the intact marriage and figure out exactly what she actually needs.
You’ll want to figure out how to maximize what her contribution to her need is going to be.
Because for every extra penny that she’s responsible for, that’s one less penny that you’re responsible for.
Finally, you got to make sure that you’re looking at the right numbers.
And if you’re not making a whole crap ton of money, we’ve got to make sure that the judge knows that you only have so much discretionary income at the end of the day — and the judge can’t make you pay money that you don’t have!
