Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee

Termination of Alimony

My divorce was final May 2005. The judge ordered my ex to pay $500 a month rehabilitative support for 2 years. There were no other conditions stipulated to it. I now earn about the same income as the ex and just remarried. He and his attorney want me to sign paperwork that would terminate the alimony payments. Should I sign? I don't want to have to pay attorney fees and court costs, if it is most likely a judge would order to terminate the alimony anyway. Also, could I be ordered to pay back rehabilitative alimony that was paid after I was married?


Asked on 7/05/06, 1:40 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Marc Reisman Rosenblum & Reisman, P.C.

Re: Termination of Alimony

I can not accept your premise that you should not hire an attorney to review the situation. Hopefully the one you used in your divorce will only charge you a small consultation fee to consider this. Some of the things that come to my mind are as follows: Generally the statute provides, "An award of rehabilitative alimony shall remain in the court's control for the duration of such award, and may be increased, decreased, terminated, extended, or otherwise modified, upon a showing of a substantial and material change in circumstances...." There is at least one case that essentially holds: "Modification based on an increase of alimony recipient's income is proper only when the initial alimony award was based on a presumption that the recipient would not continue to increase his/her income through the pursuit of his/her career." Is your increase in income something that was not anticipated? I would suggest you contact your former attorney or another family law attorney in your area to discuss the case law and the statutory language applicaple to you. In fact there may be something in the language of your divorce decree that might shed some light on the issue. Best of luck with this.

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Answered on 7/05/06, 2:11 pm


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