Am I a Candidate for Calgary Spousal Support?
Calgary Family Lawyers Spousal Support lawyers at MacLean Law’s Calgary office educate our Calgary family clients on their rights and responsibilities relating to Calgary spousal support entitlement, amount and duration. One of the first questions the parties or a judge hearing the Calgary spousal support matter must address is whether any Calgary spousal support should be paid at all. If the answer is yes, then, the next step is to decide how much and for how long.
In today’s Calgary Family Lawyers Spousal Support blog, Peter Graburn, senior Calgary family lawyer at our Calgary family law office, gives you a summary of what you need to know for Calgary spousal support.
If you have a Calgary Family Lawyers Spousal Support question call us at 1-403-444-5503 so you can ensure your rights are protected.
Calgary Family Lawyers Spousal Support – Entitlement
Are you a Candidate to pay / receive Spousal Support?
Spousal support can (but does not have to) be a difficult issue for separating couples, whether married or “common-law”. Many people put off the discussion of spousal support to the end of separation negotiations, but it often hovers over those discussions like the ‘elephant in the room’.
But the payment of spousal support is not automatic on separation (like the payment of child support by a non-custodial parent). For someone to be eligible to receive spousal support, they must first show they have an ENTITLEMENT to receive support on at least one of the following grounds:
Promise to Pay (Contractual) – one of the parties promised to take financial care of the other if they ever separated. This doesn’t arise very often, unless the couple have signed a pre-nuptial agreement or marriage contract or verbally made such a promise prior to separation;
Need (Non- Compensatory) – this is the most common ground for claiming spousal support. If one person has substantially less disposable income than the other, they may claim to have a ‘need’ for spousal support. However, other factors must also be taken into account, such as the amount of property each person has, or why the people have different levels of income;
Compensation (Compensatory) – this can often be the most controversial and difficult ground for spousal support. Basically, this is a claim for compensation for something ‘given up’ for being in the relationship (ie. a career to stay home with the children, etc.).
Once someone has passed the test / gotten over the wall of entitlement and proven they are entitled to receive spousal support, the issue of spousal support then becomes a question of:
How long? (Duration) – generally, the rule is: short-term support for a short-term relationship; long-term support for a long-term relationship. However, in some circumstances (ie. a very long-term relationship, or illness), the support may be for an indefinite period of time (this does not mean forever!) until a change in circumstances (ie. retirement, etc.) results in a review of the spousal support amount;
How much? (Quantum) – for some, this is the most important question. It generally comes down to how much the recipient ‘needs’ to live versus how much the payor can ‘afford’ to pay. Taxes must also be considered (see next section);
How paid? (Form) – how spousal support is paid can have very significant differences in the net amount paid or received by the spouses, primarily for tax reasons. Spousal support can be paid: periodically (ie. so much per month) where generally it is taxable to the recipient and tax-deductable for the payor; lump-sum, which is generally tax-neutral to both parties; in-kind (ie. pay the mortgage, utilities, car and phone payments, schooling, etc.), or a combination of all of these.
Am I a Candidate for Calgary Spousal Support? How Do You Decide?
But how do you decide these Calgary family lawyers spousal support issues questions? There are a number of ways:
Pick a number out of the air the parties may simply decide on an amount. One person says “I need $X” and the other says “I can pay that”. If the parties have no idea what would be a reasonable amount of spousal support, they can then look to;
Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (SAAGs) – the SAAGs are not law (unlike the Federal or Alberta Child Support Guidelines) – they are only guidelines to assist parties (and their lawyers) establish a range of possible spousal support payments under the circumstances that the parties can then consider. Alberta Courts apply the SSAGs most of the time, but are not a slave to them – neither should the parties be. There are also many cases where the SSAGs do not automatically apply, including where the person paying spousal support is a high-income earner (over $350,000.00 per year). In this situation, the Court may either use the SAAGs to establish a minimum amount of spousal support and then top-up this amount (the “Minimum Plus” approach), or come up with a spousal support figure without using the SSAGs to set a minimum amount (the “Pure Discretion” approach) (more to come on this in another article). In some cases full SSAG spousal support on even multimillion dollar income occurs such as a recent win for Lorne MacLean, QC obtained monthly support of nearly $100,000 per month.
Budgets – if the parties still cannot decide on a spousal support figure, a micro-analysis of each party‘s budget is looked into to determine the need and ability to pay of each party.
Am I a Candidate for Calgary Spousal Support? Who Should Decide?
Read more on how Calgary spousal support works . If the parties cannot agree on a reasonable amount of spousal support payable between themselves, the matter may then go to Court where a Judge will make the decision, using (most of) the same approaches described above.
Whatever method (ie. negotiation or litigation) you decide to use, our skilled and experienced Calgary spousal support lawyers can help you to come to a reasonable, final and durable spousal support settlement with your ex-partner.
