Requirements for ordering maintenance

This bill provides, as an overall guiding principle, that maintenance is a rehabilitative measure to enable the party for whom it is ordered to acquire the education or skills to become self-supporting and sets out more specific standards for courts to use in ordering maintenance. Under the bill, a court may not order maintenance unless the parties have been married for at least 15 years, which eliminates the availability of maintenance in most annulment actions, and the party seeking maintenance shows either: 1) that because of the marriage he or she lacks sufficient resources to provide for his or her minimal, reasonable needs; or 2) that employment is difficult for the party to obtain or maintain because of a physical or mental disability that was incurred during the marriage.

The bill, for the most part, retains the factors under current law for the court to consider when ordering maintenance, but eliminates some of the factors under current law, such as the tax consequences to each party and any mutual agreements made before or during marriage concerning any arrangement for the financial support of the parties. The bill adds as factors to consider all financial resources of the party seeking maintenance in addition to the property division, the contributions and sacrifices of each of the parties during the marriage, and the efforts of the party seeking maintenance to obtain suitable employment before and during the pendency of the action. The bill provides that, regardless of the court's findings after considering the other factors, the court may deny maintenance if the party seeking maintenance engaged in extramarital activities during the marriage or has not made reasonable efforts to obtain employment or develop skills to become self-supporting.

The bill limits the length of maintenance to the shortest time necessary for the payee to become employed at a level that provides for minimal, reasonable needs, but not more than three years, with two exceptions. If the payee contributed to the education of the payer, maintenance may continue until it equals the amount that the payee contributed; if the payee became disabled during the marriage, maintenance may continue for the shorter of: 1) as long as the disability continues but not past the age at which a person the same age as the payee would be eligible for unreduced social security benefits; or 2) until the payee receives or is eligible to receive disability payments or other benefits on account of the disability. The bill limits the amount of maintenance to the amount necessary to meet minimal, reasonable needs, but not more than 20 percent of the payer's monthly income, based on a 40-hour work week or the payer's base pay.

Under current law, the court is required to terminate maintenance, upon application by the payer, if the payee remarries. The bill adds that the court must also terminate maintenance, upon application by the payer, if the payee cohabits with another adult person of the opposite sex.