Collaborative Divorce and Divorce Mediation Means Alimony Can Be Determined With Common Sense

    NEWTOWN, PA, February 23, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- An unavoidable topic that couples go through during a Bucks County divorce is alimony, which is an amount of money that gets paid to the lower income spouse after the decree goes through. If you are the lower income spouse, you are concerned that you have enough cash flow to manage your monthly expenses. If you are the spouse that is going to be paying the alimony, you are concerned with what you are going to have left over for your own expenses.

Typically, alimony is determined through a formula. The courts do not consider budgets or expenses of the parties...they simply base it on a formula. In divorce mediation or collaborative divorce, we have the ability to look at what the household budget is while the couple is still together (or what it was when they were living together) and what it's going to look like when they will be living separately. It also gives the parties a chance to look around and see if one of them is going to move to a more affordable area. Additionally, they can research the real estate market to see if it's beneficial to sell the house and set up two separate households instead of retaining the marital residence.

Another benefit of covering alimony issues from a Bucks County divorce with collaborative divorce and divorce mediation, is that you can get an idea of what their expenses are going to be and we can look at the income that is available and try to craft a figure that works for everybody. Neither side is going to be truly happy with the number, but it is not an amount that is imposed on them and it's one that gets arrived at through logic, reasoning and looking at the reality of the situation. The courts don't look at the reality of divorcing families lives...they look at what is the law. They rule based on what the charts say that support should be. That's the number. Period. They don't consider facts like the children have always gone away to sleep away camp and that's something that parents both agree that should continue and "we need to figure out a way to pay for that."

I have been really successful in taking a budget-based approach to alimony issues in Bucks County using collaborative divorce or divorce mediation...in particular coming to a figure that makes sense for the both of the parties.

Tracy Timby is a partner at Timby Hunt Attorneys at Law and specializes in Collaborative Divorce and Divorce Mediation in Bucks and Montgomery Counties (Pennsylvania).

Website: http://timbyhunt.com

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