In the first blog, we dealt with Sally who has been married to Jim for 15 years. If you haven’t read that one, please go back to that and catch up! This blog is the second scenario. In this situation, Sally and Jim have been divorced for 2 years. Their children are now grown and out of the house. Jim was ordered to pay a significant spousal support to Sally, in the amount of $3,000 per month. This spousal support would terminate only upon the following conditions: 1) Sally’s death; 2) 8 Years from the date of the final divorce; 3) Sally’s cohabitation with an unrelated male; or 4) Sally’s remarriage.
Jim has to pay spousal support for 6 more years, which comes to $216,000 AFTER TAX money! He has been hoping that Sally would find a new husband quickly, which would allow his spousal support to come to a halt. Sally, on the other hand, has no intention to walk away from $216,000, and even though she has met and fallen in love with Roger, she is refusing to marry him and lose this money. Roger, on the other hand, doesn’t want to wait six more years, and instead has been encouraging Sally to move into his house.
So….about 6 months ago, Sally left her house (the one she got in the divorce), and secretly moved into Roger’s house. However, she did not forward her mail to Roger’s…she did not change her driver’s license to his address, she did not change her voter’s registration to his address, and she did not change her address for the IRS.
Instead, she came to her now empty house a few times a week to pick up her mail, switch out some clothing (she still leaves clothes in the old house as well)and very occasionally she spends the night in her old house. So, in her mind she has now avoided the “cohabitation trap” which would trigger the termination of her spousal support. She has the best of everything: she is able to enjoy Roger’s company most every day and night, and she keeps her old house as camouflage for her now romantic cohabitation.
It’s an old game. So, how does Jim prove what is really going on? He has pretty good suspicions, and he calls his attorney. A good lawyer will do a risk/benefit analysis for Jim. If he can prove this, spousal support will be terminated and he can save $216,000. Yes, a private detective is expensive, but the savings for Jim will far outweigh the cost of both the private detective and the attorney fees.
So, the attorney works with the private detective to provide him/her the exact information that is needed for proof that would trigger the termination of the spousal support. Once the proof is gathered, the attorney puts into motion the termination of the spousal support for the court to grant.
The attorneys at Joseph & Joseph & Hanna, Co. LPA are VERY experienced in this type of matter, and look forward to being your lawyers!
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