Arizona Spousal

A spouse seeking maintenance in Arizona must prove one of four things to be eligible to receive an award of alimony in Arizona. Specifically, the spouse must prove any of the following: The spouse lacks sufficient property to provide for his or her needs.

There is no one formula for computing the amount and length of alimony in AZ. The court decides these on a case-to-case basis, examining factors such as the financial resources of each party, their earning capacity, their standard of living, and of course, how long the marriage lasted.

The Types of Spousal Maintenance in Arizona Judges can award temporary support during the divorce also referred to as pendente litemeaning it's pending until the divorce is over.The judge can order a temporary maintenance award, meaning financial support will continue for a fixed amount of time after the divorce.

The duration of payments is determined by a judge in Arizona family court. Alimony length is usually based on length of marriage - one commonly used standard for alimony duration is that 1 year of alimony is paid every three years of marriage (however, this is not always the case in every state or with every judge).

In terms of spousal maintenance duration, most court orders require alimony payments to last 30 to 50 percent of the marriage duration. A year-long marriage, for example, may result in spousal support lasting four months or so.

In most cases, only persons who have been involved in a marriage of a longer duration (usually over 5 years) are qualified for spousal support. Also, the court will take into account several factors when making the support determination, including: The earning capacity of each spouse.

You may also have heard that Arizona spousal maintenance can be calculated using what is called the Maricopa County marital duration factor. In this computation, the number of years married is multiplied by a number from 0.015 to 0.5.

Arizona is what is known as a rehabilitate state when it comes to alimony. Meaning that the purpose of the alimony should be to enable the other spouse to get back on their feet and be self-sufficient. Thus alimony awards in Arizona may be for less number of years than what other states would award.