Sacramento Spousal Support

The court looks at the following sources of income for support: earnings and other income that would have been community income if the parties were still living together, community property assets, and even the separate property assets of the supporting spouse. See Family Code 4338.

The parties can agree to any figure they wish for spousal support. Agreeing to "DissoMaster 35% Formula" is one common method to avoid trial on spousal support. However, the divorce court judge cannot use the DissoMaster software to calculate long-term support. (See Marriage of Schulze (1997) 60 Cal. App. 4th 519). Keep in mind, though, that the trial judge may peek at the DissoMaster screen when estimating taxes or comparing the parties' net spendable income when setting a post-judgment spousal support order.

Generally, if your marriage was less than ten years, spousal support will be ordered paid for one-half the length of the marriage. The “length of marriage” is from the date of the marriage ceremony to the "date of separation".  The "date of separation" is a factual issue, but usually means the first day that you lived separate and apart from your spouse.  

If your marriage was more than ten years in length, expect that the Divorce Court will reserve jurisdiction over spousal support for an indefinite period. That doesn't necessarily mean that a marriage of a little over ten years results in a lifetime of spousal support. The Divorce Court just won't set an automatic termination date. This leaves open either spouse's ability to extend or cut off long-term support after the divorce judgment (until either party dies or the supported spouse remarries in which case spousal support terminates by law).

The California Legislature has declared that it is the goal of all California residents to use their best efforts to become self-supporting. The judge in your divorce case may be asked to "warn" the supported spouse that s/he needs to use reasonable efforts to provide for their own needs and that spousal support might be reduced in the future if they don't do so. See Family Code §4330.  If the marriage is of long duration (in other words, more than ten years), it is less likely that the Divorce Court judge will give this warning.

Spousal Support orders may have automatic reductions over specific periods of time. These are sometimes referred to as "Richmond Orders". The parties can agree to scheduled reductions, but the Divorce Court will only make these orders if the trial record includes evidence that the supported spouse’s needs will decrease in line with the steps down. A typical step-down order may be based on the supported spouse’s earnings, such as reducing spousal support by $1.00 for every new $2.00 that the supported spouse receives in increased salary. Other types of reduction orders might be every year, every other year, or some other variant until support ends.