Legal Question in Family Law in California

Marriage of 14 years, 2 children, community property (home and vehicles). Party making payment has since remarried and has 2 step-children (no biological children) with new spouse. Party receiving payment has not remarried, is not co-habitating, and has not received COLA increases since 2004. Party making payments refuses to sell the house by buying out the other party's ownership or by selling theirs. Party receiving payment has been living in the residence while raising their children. Can the amount of court ordered alimony/spousal support be modified (decreased or ended) based on new incurred debt by the party making payment? Party making payment and new spouse both work and own property. Can the new spouse's income be considered when determining spousal support modifications??


Asked on 12/17/11, 12:43 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Neither party's debt is considered in calculating or modifying child support at all. Debt voluntarily incurred after alimony is set will also not be considered in terminating or modifying spousal support. You can't get out of spousal support obligations just by running up debt and then saying you can't pay any more. The only impact the new debt could have is that income tax deductions for deductible interest payments go into the calculation. So if the paying spouse starts getting fat deductions due to deductible interest payments, that will make child support go up and possibly spousal (though generally spousal would not change for that). Likewise, a new spouse and their income will have tax consequences that can make support go up or down slightly, but the new spouse's income is not added to the paying spouse's income to calculate the amount paid, and that income cannot be used to collect payments of support for the previous marriage unless deposited in a joint account with the paying spouse.

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Answered on 12/18/11, 1:58 pm


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