Temporary and Permanent Alimony
Courts may order temporary alimony while a divorce is pending. Temporary alimony doesn’t necessarily guarantee that a judge will order permanent alimony after a divorce is final.
Permanent alimony might take on different forms, including a lump sum cash payment, monthly payment installments or extra marital property. A permanent alimony order represents the court’s final ruling until a spouse petitions for a modification of the support parameters.
Factors on Deciding Alimony
Those factors may include the duration of the marriage; the income, earning abilities, assets and liabilities of each parent; the ages and physical and mental conditions of each parent and the child; the necessity of a parent to be custodian for a young or disabled child; and others.
Ohio courts also consider household labor that one spouse contributed during the marriage on a monetary value basis.
Oftentimes in cases when spouses earn roughly equal incomes, Ohio judges don’t award spousal support or maintenance. Also, courts generally decide on alimony after marital property is divided. That’s because any income that property produces can help determine both the financial needs of the spouse requesting alimony, and the available income of the spouse who will pay it.
Durations of Spousal Support
Generally, Ohio judges tend to order alimony equal to a year of support for every three years of marriage. In Ohio family law, there’s generally no alimony ordered when a marriage of less than five years is dissolved. If the marriage has lasted 20 years or more, a judge may order alimony with no termination date. Judges might also set their order for a period of time long enough for the under-earning spouse to obtain the education or training needed to become self-sufficient in the job marketplace.
