Reasonably higher alimony thanks to some patience

Our client is a wife which wants to divorce her husband. During the marriage the client has worked for the company of her husband, but has mainly taken care of their small children. When parties get a divorce, the question is whether the husband has to pay the wife children- and partner alimony.

The husband is an entrepreneur. When it comes to the income of entrepeneurs, usually the average company results of the three years prior to the year of separation are examined. In 2009 the company had a bad year, so the man suffered a considerable loss. Although the two next years were reasonably well, the average turns out quite low because of the bad year 2009. As a consequence only a small amount of money is granted as children alimony and the request for partner alimony is declined, because the lack of financial capacity with the man. This happens in 2012.

The divorce proceedings are planned some months later. We have been able to postpone the court session until 2013 for our client. This way the year 2009 was not used for the calculation of the average income, because now the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 had to be taken into account. Now the loss-making year 2009 was left out and the average income ends up higher, which also raises his financial capacity. Now the client could request more alimony.

The man tried to prevent this by not submitting the documents over 2012, but the judge followed us in our objection against this action. This because an entrepreneur is expected to at least have provisional numbers for the year 2012. Given that the man has not submitted these numbers, the judge estimates a result based on the previous year, so 2011. Because this was a very good year, the average company result over 2010, 2011 and 2012 ends up substantially higher. This way we were able to get a considerable higher children and partner alimony for our client. This gave her the possibility to leave the social assistance benefit system and build a new life, together with her two little children.