Areas of Practice: ALIMONY

Alimony is a payment made from one spouse to the other for their support. It can be made both during the marriage and following divorce. Usually, these payments are made on a periodic basis, whether it be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. In New Jersey, there is no set formula for an alimony award. Alimony is based upon statutory factors including, but not limited to, need and ability to pay, the age and health of the parties, educational backgrounds, length of the marriage, parenting responsibilities, and the parties’ employment and earnings history. The goal of an award of alimony is that the parties be able to approximate the marital standard of living following divorce, normally a difficult thing to accomplish with now having two households to support.

The payment of alimony can take four forms, whether in the singular or more than one form in a case:

• Permanent-normally seen in long-term marriages and continuing until the death of either party or remarriage, although subject to modification and/or termination upon cohabitation of the spouse receiving alimony and retirement.
• Limited duration- paid for a set period of time, i.e. when a parties’ child goes to school full-time and the supported spouse becomes gainfully employed.
• Rehabilitative-paid during a period of rehabilitation of the supported spouse, i.e. while attending courses to reenter the workplace.
• Reimbursement-intended to reimburse a party for their contributions to the other spouse for acquiring a higher earnings potential during the course of the marriage, i.e. the supported spouse put the other spouse through medical school while by borrowing loans and working hard.

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