Alimony: 5 Frequently Asked Questions
Alimony – what exactly does it mean? Who has to pay alimony to whom? How long do alimony have to be paid and can their amount change? Find the answers to common questions about alimony here.
1. What is alimony?
The term alimony comes from the Latin “alimentum”, which means “food”. In today’s legal language, it stands for maintenance payments. Alimony , or alimony, is paid to ensure the necessities of life for another person.
2. Who gets and who pays alimony?
Alimony is given to needy people who, despite all efforts, cannot earn their own living:
- Married and illegitimate children of separated parents receive alimony in the form of child support. This is usually paid by the parent with whom the underage child does not live. In the case of adult children, both parents must pay for child maintenance. You can find more information about child support in our separate article.
- (Ex) spouses and (ex) life partners can, depending on their individual situation, claim alimony in the form of separation maintenance or post-marital spousal maintenance. The latter is subject to further subdivisions, such as child support, old-age support or sick support. These alimony is paid by the former partner, provided that he or she has sufficient financial resources. They are subject to different requirements and stipulations and must always be calculated on a case-by-case basis. You can find more information on this in our relevant articles on separation support , spousal support and child support .
- Other people who are directly related to you may also be entitled to alimony. The most well-known form here is parental maintenance, which is usually considered when the parents live in a retirement or nursing home and cannot pay the full cost themselves. The social welfare office usually pays the difference, but it can use the children to pay alimony, in which case parental maintenance. However, existing maintenance obligations towards your own children or former partners have priority.
In principle, adults have an obligation to earn a living, which means that everything reasonable must be done to make a living or to meet maintenance obligations. For example, anyone who works less than they could and therefore earns less is not exempt from the maintenance obligation or entitled to receive maintenance.
3. How is the amount of alimony calculated?
The amount of the alimony to be paid can be agreed individually or regulated by law by the family court. When calculating child and spousal maintenance, family courts usually use the so-called Düsseldorf table of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court as a guide. This represents a guideline in which the income, living and financial circumstances of the person obliged to pay maintenance are taken into account. In addition, most higher regional courts have also drawn up their own maintenance guidelines with information on child and spousal maintenance, which may differ in some points.
In the case of parental maintenance, the social welfare office checks in individual cases whether the children have to pay for the parental maintenance. To do this, it is necessary for the children to disclose their income and assets.
In order to secure their own livelihood, persons who are responsible for maintenance are generally granted a so-called deductible. A deductible is a defined minimum amount that must not be undercut by the payment of maintenance. You can find more information on this in our article “Deductible for alimony payments” .
4. How long must alimony be paid?
Here it depends on the form of the alimony and individual circumstances:
- Child maintenance must always be paid as long as the children are minors. Adult children are entitled to maintenance as long as they are still in education or looking for a job.
- The payment of spousal maintenance after marriage can be limited in time, for example to 3 years in the case of child support. As a rule, spousal maintenance ceases to apply as soon as the ex-spouse earns enough money to stand on his own two feet, remarries or waives maintenance. Lifelong spousal maintenance is only possible in exceptional cases.
- Separation alimony usually accrues until the final divorce. In some cases, this maintenance obligation can end earlier, for example if the maintenance creditor suddenly earns more than the maintenance debtor.
- The obligation to pay parental maintenance usually expires with the death of the parents.
5. When does alimony change?
The amount of the alimony to be paid can fundamentally change. Again, it depends on the form of the alimony:
- According to the Düsseldorf table, child support is graded according to the age of the child. The older the child gets, the more maintenance he is entitled to. A change in the income of the person liable for maintenance also affects the amount of the alimony and can lead to an increase or decrease.
- In the case of post-marital spousal maintenance, separation maintenance and parental maintenance, changes in income are particularly decisive for a recalculation of the alimony to be paid. The respective amount is not regulated by fixed amounts as in the case of child support, but must be calculated on a case-by-case basis.