You Can Use to Ask for More Alimony

You need credible and convincing arguments to ask for an alimony increase. Below are some of the reasons the court may accept for increasing alimony receipts.

Reduction of Income

When a court calculates the alimony you should receive, it considers both your former partner's and your income. The court uses the information on how much money you need (and can get) as alimony to maintain your standard of living.

Say you are earning $3,000 per month, but your standard of living requires $5,000 per month. You may get the additional $2,000 as alimony subject to your former partners' ability to pay the money. You can petition the court for increased alimony if your income drops to $2,500. You may need to prove that your actions or inactions did not contribute to the income drop.

Loss of Assets

Your income is not the only factor in alimony calculation; your asset base matters too. Say you have a car, primary residence, and a vacation home. The judge will consider those assets when determining alimony since they affect your standard of living. As such, it makes sense to petition or alimony increased if you lose one of the assets.

For example, your standard of living would change if you lose your primary residence. In such a case, increased alimony may help you get a new place to live.

Increase in Justified Expenses

You may experience an increase in expenses without losing your assets or income. Say your city experiences increased investments, and property owners decide to increase rents. Your rent increase would be a justifiable increase in expense, especially if you cannot find cheaper housing. Use the rent increase to claim more alimony.

Failure of Financial Position to Improve

The law recognizes different forms of alimony. One of them is rehabilitative alimony, in which you need to improve your financial situation (for example, to start a business or go back to school). Unfortunately, things do not always go as planned, and your rehabilitation alimony might fail to improve your finances.

For example, an economic downturn can tank your business, or you might lose a job. You might need more money for your financial rehabilitation in such cases. Again, you must prove that you did not play a role in your financial difficulties.

Increased Cost of Living

The cost of living determines the spending power of money. The spending power of money decreases with the increased cost of living. A pandemic, war, or global economic downturn can all increase the cost of living. In such cases, the original alimony might be inadequate. You may get more alimony if your partner can pay Inadequate Original Award

You can also petition the court for more alimony if you have discovered errors in the original calculation. That might be the case if:

• The judge did not consider all your ex-partner's sources of income
• Your partner's lied about their assets or income
• The court used an inflated value of your income or assets in the calculations

You may be able to get the court to recalculate your alimony if you can prove your claims.

Escalator Clause Trigger

An escalator clause gives you an automatic increase in alimony if the paying person's income increases. However, your partner might be reluctant to increase their payments even if their income increases. In such a case, you may petition the court to affect the increase.

If you are very lucky, you could get more alimony simply by negotiating with your former partner. However, many people are not that lucky and require the court's intervention to get more alimony. Kalasnik Law Office can help you with your alimony modification quest. Contact us for a consultation to determine the way forward.