More Details on Rehabilitative & Indefinite Alimony in Maryland

Details on Rehabilitative Alimony

Rehabilitative alimony is awarded far more frequently than indefinite alimony, and the reason for this is simple: far more cases meet the necessary conditions to justify the former as opposed to the latter. The purpose of rehabilitative alimony is to assist the recipient spouse for as much time as is needed to enable the recipient spouse to attain a higher economic station. Typically, this means enough time for the recipient spouse to obtain additional education or training in order to later acquire suitable employment. Often, when spouses divorce, one spouse leaves the marriage with substantially higher earning capacity. There might be any number of reasons for this to occur, including the voluntary withdrawal from the workforce by one of the spouses during the marriage. The key things about this type of alimony are that it is temporary, and also that the recipient spouse must need time to become self-supporting.  

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Details on Indefinite Alimony

Indefinite alimony refers to an alimony award which has no definite endpoint – hence, the payor spouse makes regular payments to the payee spouse on a continuous basis. Since indefinite alimony seemingly continues without end, this type of award is granted much less often. The criteria which justify this type of award are seldom seen: the payee spouse needs to be unable or highly unlikely to attain a satisfactory economic station; or, the discrepancy between the payor spouse and payee spouse’s economic situation must be so wide as to be unconscionable or shocking to the court. In real terms, this generally means there must be a spouse who suffers from a serious mental or physical ailment which renders that spouse unemployable. In certain cases, both spouses might be employable, but the discrepancy between the spouses is simply too large as to be permissible. A scenario which may fit into this description could be a payor spouse with very high earning capacity – say, a hedge fund manager earning a seven figure income – and a payee spouse who works as a waitress.

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The Deadline for Alimony Claims  

Significantly, all alimony claims must be made prior to the finalization of the divorce. This is something which readers need to commit to memory: once the divorce judgment is rendered, parties can no longer go back and attempt to make an initial claim. Of course, parties can petition for modification of alimony awards after those awards have already been granted in a judgment; but, if no initial claim is made before the judgment, Maryland follows the rule that claims are barred after the divorce is finalized.

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Factors Considered When Awarding Alimony

Marylanders should be aware of the myriad factors which are taken into consideration when courts make alimony determinations. Maryland courts don’t simply make determinations in a formulaic way, by simply inputting numbers into boxes and making straightforward calculations. Courts view and consider a wide range of factors, not just the relative earning capacities of the spouses or their levels of education and employability. Courts consider the length of the marriage, each party’s contributions to the marriage, financial and non-financial, each party’s general behavior during the marriage, the presence or absence of any children, and so forth.

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Parties Can Privately Agree on Alimony

Another important point to bear in mind is the fact that parties can always privately agree on alimony among themselves prior to the divorce, and these private agreements will typically be enforced by the court. In other words, parties can predetermine whether there will be alimony in a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, and these terms will be deemed enforceable provided that the agreement meets all the normal standards of contract law (i.e. disclosures, absence of fraud, absence of duress or coercion, etc.).

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Contact the Murphy Law Firm for More Resources

Readers who want to learn more about rehabilitative or indefinite alimony, property division, modification of alimony awards, or any other related family law topic, contact one of the family law attorneys at the Murphy Law Firm today by calling 240-219-5243.

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