How Long Can Alimony Last After Divorce?

If you are trying to work out important questions of alimony, custody, and asset division in Atlanta, GA divorce, talking with an experienced divorce and custody attorney is the best way to be sure you understand all your rights and reach a divorce settlement that is in your best interests.

From a Divorce and Custody Attorney: How Long Can Alimony Last After Divorce?

In most cases, the court awards alimony payments monthly for a predetermined number of years. How long this lasts depends on many individual factors, and you will need to talk to an attorney to get specifics for your case. In general, the longer the marriage, the longer the alimony is likely to last, particularly if one party sacrificed their own career or never trained for one to begin with in order to keep the home or to promote the career of the other party in the marriage.

Other factors that will affect how long alimony lasts include the health of both the spouses, what other assets are available to them, and whether there are children: what are their needs, and what do custody arrangements look like?

Again, these are all very individual situations, and only a lawyer can help you understand what you should ask for or what is fair to be paying. Sometimes, the courts award lump sum alimony payments rather than regular, periodic payments, but this is less common. Finally, couples can make their own arrangements for alimony, and provided a court signs off on these arrangements, they would be binding.

When Can Alimony Terminate Early?

There are three situations when alimony can be terminated early, unless there’s an agreement between the spouses to the contrary. The first is if the receiving spouse remarries. At that point, he or she is no longer entitled to any alimony payments. However, it’s important to realize that remarriage only affects the receiving spouse. The paying spouse must still continue paying even if they get remarried themselves.

The second factor that could end alimony payments early is if the receiving spouse cohabitates with a romantic partner. Cohabitation does not automatically terminate alimony like a marriage would, but it does open the door, and the paying spouse can then petition the court for change or termination of alimony.

Finally, if either of the ex-spouses die, alimony payments would terminate at that point. The estate of the deceased paying spouse is not responsible to continue paying alimony after the death of that spouse under normal circumstances. The only exceptions would be if the alimony was supposed to be a lump sum payment, in which case it will still need to be paid. And, as stated above, if the divorcing spouses have an agreement in place that payments will continue out of the deceased’s estate, then they will.

For more information on alimony and Georgia and for help in calculating possible alimony in your case, contact our alimony attorneys at South Atlanta Family Law in Stockbridge, GA for help in Atlanta, McDonough, Stockbridge, and all of Henry County.

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