Florida's 2023 alimony reform replaced permanent alimony with durational maintenance. What that change means for retirement, property, and your settlement.
You spent 40 years building retirement savings. Now you’re dividing them in 6 months, at an age when there’s no second chance.
If you’re 65 and give up $200,000 in pension benefits you were entitled to, you’re not going to make that back. There’s no overtime at this stage. No side hustle. No waiting 15 years for the market to recover.
Florida’s 2023 alimony reform eliminated permanent alimony, even for marriages of 30+ years. If you were counting on support to maintain your lifestyle, your strategy must change. Asset division isn’t about monthly checks anymore. It’s about getting assets that generate income for 25 years.
Your pension has survivor benefit options. Your Social Security has spousal and ex-spousal claiming strategies. Your home has a cost basis from 1992 that affects capital gains. Every asset has rules, and getting them wrong costs more than you can afford.
You need someone who can project exactly what you’ll live on for the next 25 years, before you sign anything you can’t take back.
Protect What You’ve Built, Get the Guide →
Florida isn’t just the Sunshine State, it’s America’s retirement capital, with 22% of its population over age 65 (over 4.5 million seniors). If you’re over 50 and facing divorce in Florida, you’re part of a massive demographic shift as “gray divorce” reshapes the state’s legal and financial landscape.
Here’s what makes Florida unique for gray divorce: Your divorce likely isn’t about custody battles over young children, your children are grown, independent, or launching their own families. Instead, your divorce centers entirely on dividing decades of accumulated retirement wealth, real estate, investment portfolios, and pensions in a state with no income tax but recent major alimony changes.
If you’ve never personally managed the household finances, perhaps your spouse handled investments, retirement accounts, and tax planning while you focused on family and home, you’re now facing critical questions about your financial future.
Effective July 1, 2023, Florida eliminated permanent alimony and imposed duration caps on all alimony awards.
This is especially critical for gray divorce clients who expected lifetime support after long marriages. The new law includes:
No more permanent alimony: Even marriages of 20+ years cannot receive permanent support
Duration caps based on marriage length: Short-term (0-10 years), moderate-term (10-20 years), long-term (20+ years)
Retirement age considerations: Alimony can be reduced or terminated when the payor reaches normal retirement age
Income imputation: Courts can impute income to both parties based on earning capacity
What this means for 50+ divorcing Floridians: If you’re divorcing after 25 or 30 years of marriage and haven’t worked outside the home, you can no longer count on permanent support to replace your spouse’s income for life. Asset division becomes absolutely critical to your long-term security.
Unlike California’s strict 50/50 community property rule, Florida uses equitable distribution, assets are divided “fairly” but not necessarily equally. For gray divorce, this creates both opportunities and challenges.
Florida courts divide only marital property, defined as assets acquired during the marriage from the date of marriage to the date of filing for divorce.
Marital property includes:
Real estate purchased during marriage (even if titled in one name)
Retirement accounts accumulated during marriage (401(k), IRA, pension)
Investment accounts and stock portfolios built during marriage
Business interests created or grown during marriage
Vehicles, boats, and personal property purchased during marriage
Separate property (not divided):
Assets owned before marriage and kept separate
Inheritances received by one spouse (if not commingled)
Gifts given specifically to one spouse
Personal injury settlements (except for lost wages)
The commingling trap: In long marriages (20-40 years), it’s very common for separate property to become commingled with marital property. For example, if you inherited $100,000 before marriage but deposited it into a joint account used for household expenses, it may have become marital property.
Florida law requires an equal (50/50) distribution unless the court finds specific reasons to deviate. Factors courts consider include:
Each spouse’s contribution to the marriage (including homemaking and childcare)
Economic circumstances of each party
Duration of the marriage
Interruption of career or education for marriage
Contribution to the other spouse’s career or education
Desirability of keeping certain assets intact (like a business)
Intentional waste or depletion of marital assets
For gray divorce: After 20-40 years of marriage, courts often start with a 50/50 presumption. However, if you sacrificed your own career to support your spouse’s advancement or business, you may argue for a larger share based on your contributions.
Florida has some of the nation’s strongest homestead protections, which can significantly affect divorce planning:
Primary Residence: In many Florida gray divorces, the home is the largest asset. Florida’s homestead law protects primary residences from creditors, but it also creates divorce complications:
The home is marital property if purchased during marriage
If you have minor children (uncommon in gray divorce), the custodial parent may have special rights to stay in the home
Selling the home triggers capital gains considerations (IRS allows $250K/$500K exclusion)
Save Our Homes cap (property tax benefit) is lost if you move
Multiple Properties: Many Florida retirees own multiple properties, primary residence plus vacation condo, rental properties, or out-of-state homes. Each must be valued and divided.
For 50+ divorcing Floridians, retirement accounts are often the most valuable assets:
401(k) and IRA Division: The marital portion (contributions + growth during marriage) must be divided. This requires a QDRO (Qualified Domestic Relations Order) for 401(k)s or proper IRA transfer language.
Pension Plans: Florida has no state employee pension system, but many retirees have private pensions, military pensions, or federal pensions (VA, Social Security Administration). Dividing pensions requires understanding:
The marital portion (years of service during marriage / total years of service)
Survivor benefit decisions
Lump sum vs. monthly payment trade-offs
For those new to retirement planning: If your spouse managed all retirement investments, now is the time to understand what you have, how it’s invested, and how to manage it post-divorce.
Florida has no state income tax, which creates unique divorce planning opportunities:
Asset division flexibility: Unlike California or New York with 10%+ state taxes, you only need to plan for federal taxes on retirement distributions and capital gains
Alimony tax treatment: Under federal law (post-2018 divorces), alimony is NOT tax-deductible for the payor or taxable for the recipient. This makes alimony less attractive financially than pre-2018.
Retirement location: Many people divorce in high-tax states then move to Florida. If you’re already in Florida, you’re ahead of the game for retirement tax planning.
While not controlled by state law, Social Security is critical for Florida gray divorce clients:
If you were married for 10+ years, you can claim Social Security benefits based on your ex-spouse’s earnings record (up to 50% of their benefit) without affecting their benefits. This is especially valuable if you didn’t work outside the home or had lower earnings.
Important: Remarrying before age 60 terminates your ability to claim on an ex-spouse’s record.
Under Florida’s 2023 alimony reform, permanent alimony is gone. Here’s what replaced it:
Temporary alimony: During the divorce process only
Bridge-the-gap alimony: Short-term (max 2 years) to transition from married to single life
Rehabilitative alimony: To help recipient gain education/training to become self-supporting (must have specific plan)
Durational alimony: For a set period, cannot exceed 50% of marriage length
For gray divorce: Even if you’ve been married 30 years, you cannot receive more than 15 years of alimony under the new law. This makes asset division even more critical, you need assets that generate income for life, not just temporary support.
While our primary focus is gray divorce (50+ with grown children), some clients have high school or college-age children. Florida uses a guideline-based formula considering both parents’ income and number of overnights each parent has. However, for most 50+ clients, children are financially independent, and divorce planning centers entirely on asset division and retirement security.
Highest concentration of retirees: With 4.5+ million residents over 65, Florida has the infrastructure, services, and legal expertise for gray divorce financial planning.
Retirement destination divorces: Many couples move to Florida for retirement, then realize their marriage isn’t sustainable. Divorcing in Florida after relocating from high-tax states requires understanding both Florida law and tax implications of assets from prior states.
Snowbird complications: If you maintain residences in both Florida and another state (e.g., New York, Michigan), you must carefully establish Florida domicile to divorce under Florida law.
We provide virtual divorce financial planning services throughout Florida. Explore detailed guidance for these major metro areas:
In a divorce, dividing assets is only step one. This helps you understand how those assets will actually support your life.
Calculate your real post-divorce income, including spousal support, assets, and earning potential, so you negotiate from facts, not fear.
Document gathering checklists tell you exactly what to bring to your attorney, so you walk in prepared, not panicked.
Map out your real expenses as a single person, before you fight for something you can’t actually maintain.
The asset identification system helps you find accounts and property you might not even know exist.
Significantly. Florida's 2023 alimony reform eliminated permanent alimony, which had been available for long marriages. Spousal support is now time-limited, with the length based on the marriage duration. It also created a rebuttable presumption against awarding more than 35% of the paying spouse's net income in support. If you have a long-term marriage in Florida, this reform may substantially affect the support amount you can expect to receive or negotiate.
Florida is an equitable distribution state, meaning marital assets are divided fairly, but not necessarily 50/50. Courts consider factors including each spouse's economic circumstances, contributions to the marriage (including homemaking), the duration of the marriage, and whether one spouse wasted marital assets. Understanding what "equitable" actually means for your specific situation, and running the numbers on proposed splits, is essential before you sign.
Social Security benefits themselves are not divisible as marital property, but they are considered when calculating spousal support. Private retirement accounts (401(k)s, IRAs, pensions) earned during the marriage are marital assets subject to equitable distribution. Florida's status as a major retirement destination means many divorcing spouses have pension income, annuities, and complex retirement portfolios that require careful analysis.
Florida's homestead protections are strong but complex in divorce. The family home is typically a marital asset subject to equitable distribution, but if minor children are involved, the court may restrict its sale. Deciding whether to keep the home or buy out a spouse requires careful analysis of your ability to maintain it on a single income, including mortgage, insurance, property taxes, and HOA fees.
Yes. At least one spouse must have been a Florida resident for six months before filing. Florida also has a mandatory 20-day waiting period after filing before the divorce can be finalized, though contested divorces typically take much longer. The financial decisions you make during this time, including what to negotiate for, will affect your finances for decades.
17 episodes. One financial guide. Recorded by Leanne Ozaine, CDFA, who went through her own divorce after 25 years of marriage. These aren't scripts. These are the real conversations she has in her office about settlements, taxes, retirement accounts, and the financial mistakes smart people make.
Welcome to The Private Sessions
The first three episodes are free. No email. No commitment. Just press play.
Full series: 17 episodes + financial guide · $97
Divorce law is state law, and the differences matter more than most people expect. If you are looking at another state, start here.
See all states →