New maintenance law: What changes in 2008

• Children have priorityIf the income of the main earner is not enough for everyone after the divorce, children will come first. So far, the children have been on an equal footing with their divorced or current partners - now they are getting support first.
• Only three years maintenance for the mother
• The divorced partner only pays support for the mother until the age of 3 of the youngest child (he must continue to pay for the child). After that, the woman has to go back to work. Unless there are important reasons to speak against and the court recognizes. This could, for example, be a "classic role allocation" over a longer period of time or a child who in any case needs the care of the mother. Under old law, married women were entitled to maintenance at least until the child was 8 years old. They are worse off in the new law.
• Equal treatment of married and unmarried womenIn the future, married mothers will have the same rights as unmarried mothers. In the case of parents without a marriage certificate, childcare also ended before that with the child's 3rd birthday.

You are divorced according to old law?

If the ex-husband submits a so-called amendment action to the family court, he must also be renegotiated in a previous divorce. The possible consequences:

• Maintenance is reduced or limited
• Maintenance can be reduced or time limited under the new law. The mother would then be required to look for a job if the child is older than three years and none of the exceptions mentioned above are applicable.
• The maintenance of the wife falls away in favor of the children
• If the ex-husband and his new partner have other children and can not afford the maintenance for all, changes with the new law, the order of priority of the dependents: first the children, then the mother. Then the ex-wife would be forced to look for a job to make a living.
• There are also limits for amendment actions
• The ex-wife may be entitled to a "legitimate trust" in the previous legal situation: It is conceivable, for example, that she has refused in trusting the alimony a job opportunity offered to her or knocked out a vacant space for her child in the all-day school , She then has further maintenance claim.

This is Why You NEVER Want to Follow FORD Recommended Maintenance Intervals (May 2024).