Alimony

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

a couple of questions:

  1. When deciding on alimony, will the Judge base it on current income or income at time of separation. No marital fault, just a stbx that refuses to work.
  2. He is trying to get much more than I can pay and believes he is entitled because of standard of living during marriage. Judge ordered a modest amount of PSS of $390. which I can pay, but he is asking for about $750. Will Judge order ne to pay more than I can afford?
2

If the dependant spouse is not working in order to increase support, the court can impute income to them in the amount they are capable of earning for purposes of alimony calculation. The judge should not order an amount above what you can reasonably afford.

3

Thanks for the response Erin. I think youmisunderstood my first question.
Does the judge base my ability to pay alimony on my current income or income at DOS?

4

Your ability to pay is based on your current income, and your spouse’s standard of living is based on the reasonable expenses incurred during the marriage.

5
  1. Will the judge order me to sell my home because my mortgage payemnt is too high even if after realto fees and closing costs I would stand to lose more than $13,000. My stbx’s attorney has told him that the judge will order me to sell my home in order to reduce my standard of living and the ability to pay him alimony.
  2. My stbx started discussions with me requesting that we agree on alimony. He started off at $500.00 per month and has now said that he is going to court to ask for $1,150 per month. The judge orderd based on my ability to pay $391.00 per month PSS. My question, is there anyway a judge will order me to pay alimony of this accessive amount even though I don’t have it?
6

I cannot predict what a judge will do in any one case, but I can say it is possible the judge will order the home sold if neither of you can afford the payments on your own.

Alimony is based on the ability to of the supporting spouse to pay and the demonstrated reasonable needs of the dependant spouse. Normally the range between alimony and PSS is close, but again I cannot predict the outcome of any one case.

7

Is it likely that the judge would order me to sell my house (I am only one on mortgage) even if I have lost equity because of housing market and stand to lose about $13,000? This would be considred to be martital debt added to the load I already have.

8

I cannot predict what the judge will do in any one case, but your being the only one on the mortgage note, and the negative equity gives you a better argument that no harm will come to your spouse if you are distributed the home and the mortgage (since only your credit would be affected if mortgage payments were missed).