QUESTION
Do I have a case to reduce my spousal support amount?
Asked on Feb 09th, 2015 on Divorce - Washington
More details to this question:
I’m divorced and was wondering about being able to reduce spousal support based on reduced number in household? When I left the home to start our separation period, we had a house hold of seven, 5 kids in the home, 3 under aged at the time plus me and her, and mine was the only income. Almost 2 years later from separation and over year from final divorce decree, her house hold is down to only 3, her and two kids. My income at the time was 100,000 divided over 7, now she works and plus I pay her 60,000 a year in spousal support and child support. If spousal support is supposed to maintain her standard of living at the time, and my income divided at the time would be $14,285 a person, currently with her working and my support, plus the reduced number she has $28,000 a household member.
2 ANSWERS
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Unless your decree (property settlement) provided for maintenance to be adjusted, it can usually not be adjusted unless the party receiving maintenance marries. Look at your decree and see what it says. Your child support has presumably gone down if the older kids have left home. Dividing your income by the number of people in the family is not useful as the cost of maintaining a household is more complex than that and child support is a separate issue than maintenance. When a child leaves home, expenses don't actually go down by the percentage of the people in the household he represents. The mortgage stays the same and most of the utilities change only minimally. Really all that goes down is food and clothing for that child. Check your documents and you'll have the answer to your question.
Answered on Feb 10th, 2015 at 6:17 PM
Dave Hawkins
Whether you can or not depends on the language in the final decree. Some decrees state that spousal support is non-modifiable.
Answered on Feb 10th, 2015 at 5:33 PM