Tag: modify support

Modification of Alimony and Support, and some great Coronavirus information

More and more of my clients are asking about modification of alimony and child support because they or their Ex has lost jobs or seen their incomes slashed. There is also a wealth of information about the coronavirus, and one video in particular is a standout.

Alimony Modification

Life in the Coronavirus Economy

We didn’t just pass a $2 Trillion aid package for no reason. Markets have suffered, restaurants, bars and other businesses across the country have closed or are limping along until the market returns.

Employers have furloughed employees or reduced staffing in order to prevent the spread of the cornavirus and manage the economic impact it has created. For many people, this impacts their bottom line.

What if you or your ex-spouse or co-parent has alimony or child support obligations that can no longer be paid as a result of reduced income? Or what if you have lost your job and need additional support?

The time to act may be now in order to get the right information, preserve your legal rights, even while you are trying to work cooperatively with your Ex for the benefit of everyone in the family.

Florida Alimony and Child Support Modification

I recently spoke at the Florida Bar Family Law Section/AAML Certification Review Course in Orlando on the topic of Modifications. There are a few reasons why alimony and child support can be modified.

Dramatic changes brought on by the Coronavirus in people’s health, inability to go back to work, substantial drops and rises in pay, big gifts or lottery winnings, loss of jobs, furloughing, and early retirement are the major forces behind alimony and child support modification.

In Florida, to modify alimony and child support, you have to show three fundamental things: a substantial change in circumstances, the change was not contemplated at the time of the final judgment of dissolution, and that the change is sufficient, material, involuntary and permanent in nature.

Florida courts have discretion to modify alimony and child support retroactively to the date of the original filing of the action to modify, or supplemental action for modification depending on the cause.

It is important to keep in mind that you have to take the initiative, a court will not increase or reduce or terminate your alimony and child support payments if you have not filed the appropriate pleadings.

Simply not paying alimony and child support could cause the court to issue sanctions, pay the other side’s attorney’s fees, have your driver’s license suspended, or possibly even jail.

Great Coronavirus Information

There’s an excellent and instructive video from Dr. David Price of the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City who is treating COVID-19 patients. Dr. Price shares information in a Zoom call with his family and friends on protecting yourself during the COVID-19 pandemic. Well worth a look. Some important take aways:

  • Clean your hands.
  • Wear a mask outside – not to prevent breathing in the coronavirus – but because your less likely to touch your face.
  • Stay away from people. Distance yourself from other people outside of your quarantine. Stand a 3-6 feet back.
  • Shrink your social circle. Find your isolation group and keep. It is the people maintaining large social circles who are catching and spreading COVID-19.
  • What if you catch COVID-19?

Throughout the world, the way the COVID-19 disease has been transmitted is primarily through family and your close contacts: dads and sons, husbands and wives, romantic partners, etc. If you develop a fever, isolate yourself from your family and the same rules apply: no-sustained contact to avoid picking it up. Ideally, the sick should have their own bathroom, their own bedroom, one medical mask is needed . . . on the person who is sick.

The video is here.

 

Winning Child Support Modification

If ‘money talks’, actor Charlie Sheen is talking a lot about how he can no longer afford child support after being “blacklisted” in Hollywood, according to court documents obtained by People and Us Weekly. What would the entertainer have to prove to get a child support modification in Florida?

child support modification

Defeat is not an option

The “Two and a Half Men” star, 52, filed requests to modify his child support payments to ex-wives Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller, the news sites report.

Sheen shares twin sons, 9, with Mueller, to whom he was married between 2008 and 2011; and daughters 14, 13, with Richards. That marriage lasted from 2002 to 2006.

Florida Child Support

I’ve written about child support issues before. For famous actors such as Sheen, and other high-income parents, the child support guidelines can award support far exceeding any child’s needs.

Because of this problem, the guidelines expressly provide the amounts can be adjusted upward or downward. Florida allows deviations by up to 5 percent after considering relevant factors. And the statute authorizes deviations by more than 5 percent, pursuant to a list of enumerated factors.

Not on Wall Street Anymore

Sheen’s case is ironic: the famous and flamboyant actor – surrounded by “goddesses”, infused with “tiger blood”, and bragging about “winning”, claims he can’t afford his child support payments.

If Sheen is asking for a modification of his child support, he would have to prove a substantial change in circumstances, the change was not contemplated at the time of final judgment, and the change is sufficient, material, involuntary, and permanent in nature.

Courts will also want to know whether Sheen is voluntarily reducing his income by failing to use enough effort to find work commensurate with his acting abilities.

There’s also the added problem of his flaunting his wealth. Media reports on Sheen have always shown him flaunting an extravagant hedonistic lifestyle.

“I’m bi-winning. I win here, I win there!”

The USA Today documents also reportedly reveal Sheen’s reasoning behind his “dire financial crisis” with less than $10 million to his name.

“I have been unable to find steady work, and have been blacklisted from many aspects of the entertainment industry,” he alleges in the filings. “All of this has resulted in a significant reduction in my earnings.”

In addition to child support payments, the documents show Sheen is “past due” on payments to his home mortgage and pool and gardening services.

The USA Today article is here.