Missouri Family Law Blog

In Missouri we refer to it as maintenance. The Court may award you maintenance if it finds that you: 1. Lack sufficient property, including marital property in order to provide for your reasonable needs; and 2) Are unable to support yourself through appropriate employment or are the custodian of a child whose condition or circumstances make it appropriate that you not be required to seek employment outside the home.

Once these threshold factors are met the court then has to consider several additional factors in determining the duration and amount of maintenance which are as follows: 1. The financial resources of the party seeking maintenance, 2. The time necessary to acquire sufficient education or training in order to be self-supporting, 3. The comparative earning capacity of each spouse, 4. The standard of living established during the marriage, 5. The obligations and assets apportioned to each party in the divorce, 6. The duration of the marriage, 7. The age, and physical and emotional health of the party seeking maintenance, 8. The ability of the paying spouse to meet his own needs while paying maintenance, 9. The conduct of the parties during the marriage, and 10. Any other relevant factors.

Maintenance cases can be fraught with many problems. At the present time maintenance is being awarded in just 16% of all cases nationwide. There is a national and state trend toward not awarding maintenance. There tends to be inconsistency between judges in terms of individual awards of maintenance and because there are no legislatively mandated guidelines there is no predictability for attorneys to be able to appropriately advise clients on their chances of having to pay or being able to receive maintenance. There is much litigation surrounding the interpretation of “reasonable needs”.  Just how much does a recipient spouse need each month in order to pay the bills and how much can the payer reasonably afford to pay each month? These are all questions that make divorce cases involving maintenance tricky and complex.  An appeal of a maintenance award (or lack thereof) is based on abuse of discretion. This means that there is a lot of discretion given to the trial judge in determining whether or not to award maintenance and if so, for how long. Maintenance is a complicated legal issue when it arises in any divorce. If you believe you may be in the position of having to pay maintenance or you need maintenance in order to get the basic monthly bills paid make sure you consult with a qualified family law attorney who specializes in this area of the law so you can be adequately advised of rights and options.