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Can You Invade Your Spouse’s Nonmarital Assets to Obtain Alimony? 

Can you force your spouse to invade the nonmarital assets to pay you alimony? Or does that result in the effect of an award that makes the other spouse a beneficiary of his/her inheritance estate and amounts to an impermissible equitable distribution to the husband/wife of a non-marital asset? 

Did one spouse establish a more affluent standard of living for the parties during the marriage after they received their inheritance? Did the spouse spend part of his/her principal of the inheritance to establish a higher standard of living during the marriage prior to the dissolution of marriage? When there is a calculation of the amount of money the parties were spending during the marriage, was it more during the marriage than the level of income attributed to the spouse by his/her income?

Standard of Living Requirement

As a general rule a party does not have to invade the principal of non-marital assets in order to support a spouse at a standard of living never achieved during the marriage and where the parties never spent down the principal prior to dissolution of marriage. However, if the parties’ standard of living required invading the principal of non-marital assets, section 61.08(2)(d) permits the trial court to look at all the financial resources of the parties, including “the nonmarital … assets…” distributed to each.  

Making a Case for Invading Nonmarital Assets

Generally, in fixing the amount of support payments, the standard of living to be used is that last shared by the spouses during the marriage. That is why it is so important to obtain all your spouse’s financial documents and records to prove that in your case. 

You may also have the parties’ or spouse’s accountant testify to this too. Important documents you can use to show this are W-2s and tax returns along with the nonmarital accounts. When and why was the principal of the nonmarital accounts depleted? Did the invasion of nonmarital assets cause a higher standard of living during the marriage? 

If you have more questions regarding a Marital and Family Law matter, you may call Ann Marie Giordano Gilden at Ann Marie Giordano Gilden, P.A. at 407-732-7620 and set an initial consultation.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not form an attorney client privilege.