Temporary alimony in Georgia is usually a monthly cash payment, but a judge can also award it in kind: the use of property, the payment of particular bills, or both.
No Exact Form Is Required
In Hewlett v. Hewlett, 220 Ga. 656 (1965), the temporary order gave the wife monthly support and the use of the home, and required the husband to pay the mortgage, taxes and insurance, medical and dental bills, and the children’s school expenses. The Georgia Supreme Court held these were “all without question items of support of the wife and children pending the divorce proceeding,” adding that “[n]o exact form of support is prescribed.”
Cars, Debts and Bills
In Mann v. Mann, 233 Ga. 22 (1974), the husband was ordered to keep paying the couple’s store accounts and the balance of the doctor’s bill for delivering their child. Likewise, in Carter v. Carter, 208 Ga. 329 (1951), a pregnant wife was awarded the house and the “necessary bills and expenses of the lying-in incident to the birth of the unborn child.” The use of the family car can be awarded the same way, as in Maddox v. Maddox, 210 Ga. 590 (1954).
The family home and attorney’s fees are each large enough subjects to have their own posts.
The Source Is Not Limited to Income
Under Walton v. Walton, 219 Ga. 729 (1964), the amount “is not limited to a fair proportion of the husband’s income, but may trench upon the corpus of his estate.”
Two Limits
The order must be definite. In Hewlett, an order to pay “all bills outstanding,” whoever incurred them, and any club bills the family ran up was struck as “too uncertain and indefinite to be enforced” and “arbitrary and unreasonable.” And a temporary award cannot settle who owns what, as our post on what a temporary hearing is explains.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!