TAVARES, Fla., Feb. 17, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More than a dozen members of Florida Alimony Reform (FAR) traveled to Tallahassee yesterday to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, in support of HB 549, which eliminates permanent lifetime alimony and brings Florida's out-of-date laws into the 21st century. The Committee voted 17 to 1 to support the bill as recently modified by original sponsor Representative Ritch Workman (R-Brevard), which he describes as "clarifying the law and making it fair to all parties involved." Last week, in hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, a different version of the bill was passed 6 to 0.
FAR's co-director, Alan Frisher, a Licensed Financial Advisor and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA), was among the people who testified today. He emphasized the damaging effects lifetime alimony has on children, including his own, and urged the Committee to support the bill. FAR member Dr. Gordon Finley, Ph.D., a 72-year-old retired professor of psychology at Florida International University, testified about his research, focusing on fatherhood and divorce for the last decade. He called permanent alimony "the legal remnant of an ancient society that no longer exists." He discussed his two daughters who are in their 20s, and who need financial help with health insurance and education, but because Dr. Finley is required to pay lifetime alimony to his ex-wife, he is unable to help his daughters. "Fairness dictates that whatever resources I have should go to my children," he told the Committee, "but permanent alimony keeps me from giving my daughters the support they need."
Florida is one of very few states in the country that awards permanent lifetime alimony that does not end at retirement but at death of either party or the remarriage of the recipient.
Rep. Workman stressed that HB 549 is "Not an anti-alimony bill. It clarifies law and makes it fair to all parties." The version of HB 549 that passed the Committee today makes major changes to current alimony law. Among the two most dramatic changes, it would eliminate the term "permanent" alimony and replace it with "long-term," and depart from current law by requiring a judge to consider the likelihood that divorce means both parties would have a lower standard of living, instead of requiring the payer to support the payee in the standard of living established in the marriage.
Other provisions of the proposed bill would:
- clarify that adultery can only be used in determining alimony awards if it led to depletion of marital assets or decease in family income;
- make durational alimony the default, instead of the default being long-term alimony; and make alimony last for 50% of the time of the marriage, unless there are special circumstances;
- encourage need-based alimony, through bridge-the-gap awards, which can be combined with rehabilitative and then durational alimony;
- codify current case law that permits alimony payers about to retire to file for modification and argue that retirement is a substantial change of circumstances that could lead to reduction or elimination of alimony payments;
- remove a judge's ability to use a second spouse's income or assets in alimony modifications.
FAR's co-director Alan Frisher continues to work closely with Rep. Workman on the bill's passage through the legislature.
For more on FAR's efforts to bring Florida's alimony laws into the 21st century, please visit http://www.floridaalimonyreform.com.
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