The April 2019 Marriage of Kuper case, 2019 IL App (3d) 180094), stands addressed any number of critical issues both in drafting initial maintenance awards in reviewing maintenance.
Kuper addressed:
—Liquidation of Assets: Whether the former wife’s asset base should be considered as to her ability to live at the lifestyle during the marriage:
Answer: Not in this case.
—The Elusive Marital Lifestyle: The importance of establishing the marital lifestyle in a maintenance review cases in order to preserve the issue for arguments on appeal:
Point: The issue was waived because the marital lifestyle was not established or argued for the purpose of the trial on maintenance review.
—Calculating Income for the Retired Maintenance Obligor: How to calculate income for the retired maintenance obligor including whether maintenance is based on withdrawals from accounts;
Note: It appears that the trial court based maintenance on amounts not only spent by the former husband on his own support but on the amounts he spent for his new wife and her children.
—Consideration of Inheritances for Purpose of Paying Maintenance: Whether inheritances that were received prior to the divorce should be considered for the purpose of the cash from received from them:
Answer: If the record does not establish that the inheritances were considered by the parties as part of their property settlement agreement, then there was no issue in considering regular expenses paid from them;
—Do Maintenance Guidelines Apply to Case Settled Before the Guidelines When into Effect? Whether the maintenance guidelines should apply to a case decided prior to those maintenance guideline.
Answer: Consistent with Harms, we do not apply the guidelines to maintenance review cases.
Yet, increasing the amount to the amount that would be consistent with the guidelines was not in error.
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