Child Support
Residency Requirements and Grounds for Divorce
Either you or your spouse must be a Vermont resident for at least six months to file for divorce. Also, one of you must be a resident for one year before the divorce is made final. A divorce case begins when either you or your spouse files a complaint for divorce in the family court for the county where one or both of you reside.
Grounds for divorce are:
- Living separate and apart without cohabitation for six consecutive months. The court must find reconciliation isn't likely (no-fault ground)
- Adultery
- Imprisonment for life or for three years or more
- Intolerable severity, which is misconduct by your spouse causing injury physically, or to your health, or threat of the same
- Willful desertion or when either spouse is gone without contact for seven years
- Refusal to provide support for one's spouse while able to do so
- Incurable insanity
Dividing the Property
Vermont is an "equitable distribution" state, which means that all property owned by you and your spouse is divided in an equitable or fair way. This includes property owned by either spouse or both spouses, however and whenever acquired.
Courts consider many factors in deciding property division issues, including:
- Marriage length
- Age and health of the spouses
- Occupation, source and amount of income of each spouse
- Vocational skills and employability of the spouses
- Contribution by one spouse to the education, training or increased earning power of the other
- Value of each spouse's property and debts
- Whether the property settlement is instead of or in addition to maintenance
- Future prospects for each spouse to earn income and acquire assets
- Whether the custodial parent should be awarded the family home, or the right to live there for a reasonable time
- The party through whom the property was acquired
- Contribution of each spouse to finances during the marriage, including homemaking
- Respective merits of the spouses
Be prepared with information on your property, including when you purchased it, an estimate of value, and details such as account numbers, serial numbers and so forth. You'll be ready to meet with a Vermont divorce lawyer and it can save you a lot of time and money.
Alimony
A court can order alimony, also called "maintenance" to either spouse. Maintenance may be rehabilitative, which is temporary, or permanent, each type serving a different need such as helping the recipient move towards self-support. Support is appropriate if the recipient lacks sufficient income or assets for self-support, and can't achieve the standard of living established during the marriage through an appropriate job. Custody and care of minor children may also prevent the recipient from working outside the home and justify a support award.
In deciding the amount and period of time of maintenance, the court will generally consider such factors as:
- The financial resources of the spouse seeking maintenance, including property apportioned to such spouse and such spouse's ability to meet his or her needs independently
- The time necessary to acquire sufficient education and training to enable the spouse seeking maintenance to find appropriate employment
- The standard of living established during the marriage
- Marriage length
- The age and physical and emotional condition of each spouse
- The ability of the spouse from whom support is sought to meet his or her needs while meeting those of the spouse seeking maintenance
- The effects of inflation on the cost of living
- Any other relevant factors
Child Custody and Visitation
In Vermont, joint or sole child custody may be awarded based on the best interests of the child. When the parents cannot agree to divide or share parental rights and responsibilities, the court will award parental rights and responsibilities primarily or solely to one parent. The court will consider the following factors:
- The relationship of the child with each parent and the ability and disposition of each parent to provide the child with love, affection and guidance
- The ability of each parent to provide for a child's basic needs such as food, shelter and medical care
- The ability of each parent to meet the child's present and future developmental needs
- The child's adjustment to his or her home, school and community and the potential effect of any change
- The ability and disposition of each parent to foster a positive relationship and frequent and continuing contact with the other parent
- The quality of the child's relationship with the primary care provider, given the child's age and development
- The relationship of the child with others who may significantly affect the child
- The ability and disposition of the parents to communicate, cooperate with each other and make joint decisions concerning the children where parental rights and responsibilities are to be shared or divided
- Evidence of abuse
Child Support
In Vermont, either parent or both parents may be required to pay child support. There are official child support guidelines that are presumed to be correct unless they are shown to be unfair under the circumstances. If the court deviates from the guidelines, it looks at the following factors in deciding child support issues:
- The financial resources of the child
- The financial resources of the custodial parent
- The standard of living the child would have enjoyed if but for the divorce
- The physical and emotional condition of the child
- The educational needs of the child
- The financial resources and needs of the noncustodial parent
- Inflation
- The costs of any educational needs of either parent
- Any travel expenses related to parent-child contact
- Any other relevant factors
The court may order health insurance coverage for the child. Also, every order of child support must be made subject to a wage assignment in case of delinquency.
Questions for Your Attorney