Last month, we wrote of a possible change to Florida's alimony laws. Florida is one of a number of states to reconsider its divorce laws, including provisions for how alimony is determined. Critics of our state's alimony laws have called them outdated, saying they impose an unfair punishment on those required to pay alimony.

Both chambers of the Legislature have taken up the issue and have drafted bills that would reshape our state's divorce laws. The initial drafts of the bills in the House and Senate created hard-and-fast rules that would have decreased how long an ex-spouse would have to pay alimony as well as diminished the total amount of alimony paid. The bills would also have facilitated the termination of alimony when the paying ex-spouse retired or when the receiving ex-spouse began a new relationship.

Last week, however, the Senate Judiciary Committee tempered the original version of its chamber's bill. The revised bill that came through the committee removed the strict rules and replaced them with flexible guidelines that would give judges discretion to create alimony according to the facts of each case. For example, according to the rewritten bill, judges will consider an ex-spouse's retirement as a factor in their decision to award, alter or eliminate alimony payments, but they will not be bound by that fact.

Some couples are waiting to see what the final version of the law will be before getting married. One man, who currently pays alimony to his ex-wife, is concerned that if he gets married to his fiancée, current law might take his new wife's income into account if his ex-wife requests an increase in alimony payments.

The House bill remains unchanged and would bar a court from considering the new wife's income in the husband's alimony payments to his ex-wife. The new Senate bill has no such provision.

A change to alimony laws could have far-reaching consequences, so we will monitor the progress of the bills through the Florida Legislature.

Source: Orlando Sentinel, "Senate committee waters down divorce-law rewrite," Kathleen Haughney, Feb. 9, 2012.