Broward County Family Law Blog

Miami Heat basketball player Dwayne Wade is currently paying $25,000 a month in alimony to his ex-wife. Alimony has been a much-discussed family law issue in Florida recently. In addition, he pays $10,000 a month in her living and travel expenses. Wade, who has custody of the couple's two children, also paid her a $1 million lump sum. While the couple's divorce became final last year, Wade's ex-wife recently accused him of making it difficult for her to visit the couple's two children. There are other issues that also remain in dispute between the couple.

Family law legal issues, including division of assets in a high-asset divorce, child custody and support issues, as well as alimony, can often be emotional. Alimony is often referred to as spousal support and is considered a rehabilitative payment that the paying spouse can afford to make while the other spouse becomes able to support themselves after the marriage has ended. As is the case in many family law matters, spousal support can be agreed upon by the parties or awarded by the court.

There are many important divorce legal issues, including alimony which is also sometimes referred to as spousal support.

A bill that would seriously change existing Florida alimony laws has been sent to the governor. The bills is said to be overly critical of ex-spouses, especially women, who receive alimony following a divorce to help get them back on their feet. The proposed law would end permanent alimony, would provide a cap on alimony awards (the cap would be set based on the paying spouse's income and the length of the marriage) and would make the process for the paying spouse to conduct an agreement modification to lower alimony payments upon retirement easier. The law divides marriage into categories based on length of marriage. The law would also give equal custody of any children to both parents at the end of a marriage. The proposed changes to the alimony laws have been somewhat controversial and some argue it will allow spouses to retroactively change the terms of a divorce agreement.

Grandparents' rights issues can be both complex and sometimes controversial.

A Florida mother is in a cross-border custody dispute with her child's grandparents. The situation brings the important family law issue over grandparents' rights to the forefront. The visitation dispute has been going on for several years ever since the woman's husband was killed by her grandmother. The grandparents are in Illinois and the woman has spent several months in jail in Florida due to her fight against an order that her daughter must go to Illinois to visit her grandparents. The woman claims she is caught between Florida and Illinois in the legal process. The woman reports that when her child has visited her grandparents, it has had a negative impact on the child. The woman stated that she is happy for the grandparents to come and visit the child in Florida.

Grandparents' rights can be an emotionally-charged issue.

Recently, the Florida House Civil Justice committee voted unanimously in favor of a bill in support of grandparents' rights. Grandparents' rights has been an important family law issue in Florida after the legislature's previous attempts to pass a "Grandparents' Bill of Rights" were determined to be unconstitutional because it would interfere with a parent's right to determine who can and cannot see their child. The bill would allow a grandparent to request to visit a grandchild if one of the parents is missing, dead or in a vegetative state. The more restrictive grandparents' rights law than the earlier bill of rights still has several more stops and identical legislation has not yet been heard in the state Senate.