Many people think that palimony is just alimony with a “P” and that the mere existence of a long term unmarried relationship, where the people live together, is enough to convey some right of support. Having argued the landmark Maeker v. Ross case regarding palimony in the New Jersey Supreme Court, I have made clear
We see it all of the time. The support (alimony and child support) obligor’s income is made up of multiple components – typically salary, bonus and/or deferred compensation. In cases where the bonus/deferred comp makes up only a small portion of the total yearly income, you usually wont see too much fighting about what the
Over the years, I have blogged about alimony formulas, “rules of thumb” and similar ways that alimony is settled. I say settled, because in most instances, courts are not allowed to use a formula to determine alimony. Basically, there are two types of formulas that we often see. One takes a percentage of the differences
Over the last several weeks, via emails, attending webinars and otherwise, I have frequently heard that the coronavirus may create significant estate planning opportunities. In fact, while writing this post, I Googled “coronavirus and estate planning opportunities” and got 544 million results in .46 seconds. While I am sure that not all of the results
As we have said before, the 2014 amendments to the alimony statute allegedly made it easier to terminate alimony if the recipient of the alimony was cohabiting. The statute now provides that alimony may be terminated or suspended if cohabitation was proven. The statute made clear that the parties didn’t even have to live together
Yesterday, I blogged on the S.W. v. G.M. case in a post entitled More from the Appellate Division on Lifestyle, Foulas and the Concept of Income Equalization. In that blog, I noted that the S.W. court also addressed the issue of life insurance to secure alimony.
It is not necessary to get into the facts
A few weeks ago, I authored a post on this blog entitled Debunking the Myth That the Percentage Used in the So-Called “Alimony Rule of Thumb” Should Go Down as the Payer’s Income Goes Up. That post reiterated that the Court’s cannot use formulas, but that they are often used and that people have
It has been said over and over again that there are no formula’s to determine alimony. As I have blogged in the past, other than one legal malpractice referencing the formula or “rule of thumb”, virtually every time the Appellate Division gets a case where a formula was used, the case is reversed
A recent unpublished (non-precedential) decision, Steffens v. Steffens, suggests that the answer to the above question is “no.”
In Steffens, the Wife sought to set aside a prenuptial agreement, arguing that it was unconscionable, in large part because the alimony payments she was to receive under the agreement would not allow her to maintain
For many divorce attorneys, the busy season starts after the first of the year. For the last several years, I have posted on the phenomenon of the New Year’s Resolution Divorce. For whatever reason, this post has struck a chord and has been both well received and cited by other bloggers. As such, given that