Maintenance in Missouri

One request that we are hearing more and more frequently these days is for maintenance. That's what we used to call alimony - kind of. From the position of a lawyer, maintenance and alimony are two completely different things - which is why we make a distinction. From the perspective of the person either receiving or paying, there's no difference.

Missouri makes a further distinction between maintenance granted before the divorce is granted and after the divorce is granted. Just to keep the system from getting to easy, the benchmarks for receiving maintenance are different depending on whether the maintenance is ordered for times before the divorce or for times after the divorce. The short version of the difference is that the bar for having maintenance awarded is much lower for payments made before the divorce. If those payments are to be continued after the divorce, there is a much higher standard.

Sometimes folks just look across State Line Road wistfully - because Johnson County, Kansas, has a rule that is almost set in stone with regard to maintenance. Kansas has a formula to determine the amount and duration of maintenance. Missouri doesn't.

In Missouri maintenance is generally more difficult to get. In Kansas there's the formula. Either it helps you - or it doesn't.

In Missouri maintenance, if you get it, will continue until a court says it stops - which can be for the life of the paying party. In Kansas, there's a formula that says when it stops.

Are there other circumstances under which Missouri stops child support payments? Sure. Payments stop if the paying party dies - unless he agreed to continue the payments until the other parties dies. Payments stop if the receiving party dies or remarries. And, in some increasingly unusual cases, payments stop at the end of a specific period of time.