Posted on 06/26/2011 2:10:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Drivers in Polk County are used to seeing roadside billboards promoting the Florida Lottery.
One is a bit different.
There's a small billboard on State Road 60 near Lake Wales bringing attention to what the sign's owner calls "the alimony lottery."
The 4-foot-by-8-foot sign, which Steve Hoye erected last year on his property about a mile west of U.S. 27, broadcasts the message: "STOP PERMANENT ALIMONY."
It provides contact information for Florida Alimony Reform Inc., a group that promotes changes to the state's alimony laws.
Hoye, who said his ex-wife initiated a divorce that became final in 2007, said he now pays $960 a month in alimony and has gone into debt as the result of that financial obligation and court costs.
"The Florida court system has its hooks in me for the rest of my life, as long as my (ex-)wife is alive," said Hoye, 57, the Polk County representative for Florida Alimony Reform.
Alimony requiring one member of a divorcing couple to provide ongoing financial support to the other is based on two main factors: One party's need and the other's ability to pay.
Florida Alimony Reform claims that 8 percent of the nation's alimony payers live in Florida.
The group criticizes Florida's alimony system on multiple points.
It says men are unfairly burdened by alimony orders, and it claims the system rewards ex-spouses for not working.
The alliance seeks new laws that would set stricter guidelines for alimony awards, set a maximum percentage of income to be paid, reduce the discretion of judges and end lifetime alimony obligations.
It draws upon the approach of Steve Hitner, a Massachusetts print-shop owner whose advocacy has that state on verge of adopting an alimony overhaul.
FINDING ‘HORROR STORIES'
Though the vast majority of alimony payers are men, the Florida group includes women such as Susan Jordan, a Cocoa resident who said her first husband grew so discouraged by court-mandated alimony payments he killed himself in 2003.
"What's currently going on in the state of Florida, it's morally incorrect," said Jordan, whose second husband pays alimony to his previous wife.
Jordan said 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women, yet 97 percent of those who pay alimony are men.
Ramona Blankinship, a Lakeland lawyer who practices family law, said men still make more on average than women and wives are much more likely than husbands to give up careers to raise children.
Jordan, the executive director of Florida Alimony Reform, is compiling "horror stories," including Hoye's.
Hoye was the married father of three living in Illinois when an offer of a job with a friend's moving company brought him to Florida in 2001. He said he now thinks his ex-wife, who was enthusiastic about the move, had learned of Florida's liberal alimony laws and had her mind set on divorcing once the family established residency here.
Hoye, who was married 16 years, said a family law judge granted his ex-wife control of 33 rental units Hoye had acquired in Lake Wales and ordered him to begin alimony payments, later made permanent.
Now working as a long-haul truck driver, Hoye said the divorce litigation cost him $90,000, including $36,000 in his ex-wife's lawyer fees.
He said he owes his father tens of thousands of dollars.
The advocates' ultimate goal is an end to permanent alimony. Jordan said such obligations essentially prevent men from ever being able to retire.
Florida Alimony Reform's website includes a "2nd Wives Club" forum for people like Jordan.
She said women in Florida often successfully petition for increased alimony when their ex-husbands remarry, a scenario in which Jordan said the second wife's income goes to support the husband's previous wife.
LAWS ARE CHANGING
The Florida Legislature in the 2011 session passed a law forbidding alimony terms in which the recipient's net income significantly exceeds the payer's.
The law, incorporating a bill filed in the Florida House by Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, also expands the range of factors family law judges may consider in setting alimony terms.
Hoye said he appreciates the intentions behind the new law, but he said the language is too vague to have much real effect.
Stargel, though, said it's too soon to pass judgment.
"Let's see how this works, and then we can determine from there," Stargel said. "I wouldn't want to make too sweeping of changes. Let's see if this works and meets the goal of making sure people are adequately provided for, but not to the significant burden of one of the parties."
A man ordered to make alimony payments may appeal a judge's ruling, but Jordan said that's an expensive process with a low likelihood of success.
Alimony laws allow either party to petition for modification.
Hoye complains that women are often awarded increases in alimony payments.
Reform advocates also complain that women often receive increases in alimony as soon as the couple's shared offspring reached adulthood and child-support payments end.
SEEKING GUIDELINES
The reform group's legislative agenda includes a push for binding guidelines on family law judges similar to the formula used to establish child-support payments.
In such cases, the court plugs seven sets of figures — including incomes and day-care costs — into a calculation that produces a monthly obligation.
Blankinship questioned the possibility of developing an alimony calculator.
"I just don't know how you would do it," she said.
"It's just not a total income-based calculation like it is with child support. There are so many other factors that go into the decision."
“Why go to Texas?”
I’ve read about their divorce laws. Very equitable and in favor of the man.
Frankly, I’d love to see a no-fault divorce law that said whichever wants out, they’re out; of the money, the house and the kids.
I think no-fault divorces should only be granted if both parties agree to them.
The one problem with that is many times the offending party makes life miserable for their partner while showing no compunction to leave.
Agreed. And/or they skip out with another person and act financially irresponsibly in the process, leaving that party no choice but to make the first party’s arrangement’s legally official.
As it is, the person filing (in no-fault, community property states) then gets the added joy of being the one who bears the higher legal costs, as well, too. (It costs more to file, do discovery, etc.)
They killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
The sane approach to things should be to create a standard prenuptial agreement. Done properly, it would promote the economic security of both partners, as well as their confidence that if things didn’t work out, there would not be as much lawyer-stimulated acrimony, or fees.
For example, such a prenup could include things like having both individual and joint bank accounts, working and nonworking spouse investment accounts, DNA registration for any children (which is increasingly important for medical reasons), as well as any rules for egg and or sperm cryogenic storage. The list goes on and on.
The end result is, for richer or poorer, any breakup is not going to be vicious, because it will achieve nothing.
The divorce/cohabitation industry serves three purposes.
* Keeping potential, domestic competition down.
* Spreading the social pathologies of the elite to common families.
* Constructing the artificial, defaulting economy of the present.
Enjoy, because after the deposition of the socially aberrant, we won’t tolerate the tyrants’ tool of feminism/romanticism again for a very long time.
Child support isn’t alimony. I don’t think anyone begrudges the parent who has primary custody of the kids, getting child support from the other parent.
Of course not all parents who get child support use it for child support.
Why didn’t the state wher you live go after this guys’ wages and garnish, or go after his bank accounts? They do that all the time.
>>The one problem with that is many times the offending party makes life miserable for their partner while showing no compunction to leave.<<
I agree. That is why I think the only way out is if the other side of the marriage can be convicted of a felony, e.g. physical abuse.
What about about if you’ve cheated but what to stay put? You don’t think the other person has a right to start divorce proceedings?
Yes, they can. And then they leave - with the shirt on their back.
try fl’s 12 years,
even though fl has a boyfriend cohabitation rule, good luck proving it.
He works, they find him and start the collection process, he finds out about it and quits. He won’t hold a job unless it’s “under the table” pay...that way, he doesn’t have to pay. He doesn’t file taxes either since they would seize that...the first 4 years, he filed and claimed the kids’ EIC...taking about $7000 a year from the government that he wasn’t due.
Now he’s married to a convicted/registered sex offender. She gets disability because of the conviction. They live off that, and a paper route that pays unreported cash. (the last I heard anyway)
Yikes. What a disaster.
This IS the billboard guy. Attorney Blankinship makes the presumption that the state should have control and total say of the remainder of our lives...over a broken marriage. Many states have a simple calculation of alimony support ie 1/2 the duration of the marriage, some much less.
FAR (http://www.floridaalimonyreform.com) has what this atty cant figure out as far as “fair” alimony settlements. It does come however with considerably less billable hours.
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