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The Matter of Cohabitation and Spousal Support and Alimony

By James Chau

Many divorced couples today in an effort to move on with their lives, end up in situations where they live with their new significant other, but if the party living with their new boyfriend/girlfriend is receiving spousal support, cohabitation could jeopardize the support.  An article describes cohabitation as a couple living together in a marriage-like manner, with interwoven financial interdependencies among other things.

 According to the article, in the area of family law, cohabitation often forces the reevaluation of whether the spouse receiving support is already in a "supportive" relationship to the point that the need for financial assistance from the spouse paying support is reduced. Sometimes cohabitation is a matter covered in a Marital Settlement Agreement, however, it?s not language that is typically part of the document. This can leave the matter difficult for attorneys to piece together.

 If an allegation comes up and the matter ends up in Court, cohabitation and spousal support can be expensive in terms of legal fees and the likelihood of a successful outcome is dependent upon what is learned.

 The article outlines some helpful questions the article asks you to consider before taking on the task of modifying spousal support when cohabitation is an issue:

 1. Does the couple spend more than three or more consecutive overnights together in a given week?
2. Does the couple share household chores such as laundry, dishes, cooking, or mowing the lawn?
3. Does the couple have a shared bank account? Family plan for cell phone bills? Both names on a lease or car?

If there are any legal questions you may have, I encourage you to, please contact my San Jose Divorce Lawyers office. My San Jose Family Lawyer offices assists many people who are going through family law related issues. We have many Affordable San Jose Divorce Lawyer solutions for many different budgets. We help many individuals through this very chaotic period in their life. Proudly serving the following cities, Fremont, Milpitas, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Mountain View, and Santa Clara.

Full post as published by San Jose Divorce Law and Family Law Lawyer Blog on April 03, 2014 (boomark / email).