One issue that keeps coming up repeatedly in appellate decisions is whether the party paying temporary spousal maintenance, can also be ordered to pay carrying costs of the marital residence. In Rouis v. Rouis, 156 A.D.3d 1198 (3rd Dept. 2018), the Appellate Division, Third Department, held that the statutory formula used to calculate the presumptive temporary maintenance award was intended to cover all of the nonmonied spouse’s needs and basic living expenses, including the carrying charges on the home and her vehicle expenses.
The parties were married in 1993 and had two children. The wife commenced this action for divorce in 2014, after the husband departed the marital residence. Applying the pre-2015 temporary maintenance formula on the wife’s motion for temporary relief, the trial court granted the wife, among other things, temporary maintenance ($1,958 per month) and child support ($2,720 per month) and required the husband to pay for the carrying costs of the marital home ($4,859 per month), private school for the youngest child ($848 per month), health insurance for the family ($1,921 per month), interim counsel fees ($10,000) and the wife’s vehicle and fuel costs ($644 per month). The husband appealed.
The Appellate Division recognized that the combined monthly awards amounted to an annual award of $155,400, not including an additional $10,000 in interim counsel fees, to be paid from the husband’s annual gross income of $183,300.50 (the wife’s pre-award income was $11,700.00). It held that the temporary awards were excessive and should be modified.
The Appellate Division noted that the (pre-2015) temporary maintenance formula resulted in a presumptive monthly temporary maintenance amount of $4,387.50. The trial court also granted the wife’s request that the husband also pay the $4,859 in the expenses related to the marital residence, including the mortgage, taxes, utilities, insurance and costs of maintenance. While acknowledging that it would not be equitable to require the husband to pay full maintenance, child support and all carrying costs on the marital home, it gave a reduction to the husband for one half of the carrying costs on the home ($2,429.50 per month) by reducing the presumptive maintenance award by that amount, resulting in a temporary maintenance award of $1,958 per month. The Appellate Division noted that when the wife’s vehicle expenses were added ($644 per month), the total combined monthly award was $7,461, plus the children’s tuition ($848 per month) and child support, the net effect of the trial court’s order was that the husband was ordered to pay the full presumptive maintenance award plus one half of the carrying costs on the home and the wife’s vehicle expenses.
The Appellate Division held that the statutory formula used to calculate the presumptive temporary maintenance award was intended to cover all of the nonmonied spouse’s needs and basic living expenses, including the carrying charges on the home and her vehicle expenses. In its holding, the Court cited the First Department’s observation in its 2012 decision in Khaira v. Khaira, 93 A.D.3d 194 (1st Dept. 2012), that “[n]o language in either the new temporary maintenance provision or the [Child Support Standards Act] specifically addresses whether the statutory formulas are intended to include the portion of the carrying costs of their residence attributable to the nonmonied spouse and the children. . . . But, in the absence of a specific reference to the carrying charges for the marital residence, we consider it reasonable and logical to view the formula adopted by the new maintenance provision as covering all the spouse’s basic living expenses, including housing costs as well as the costs of food and clothing and other usual expenses.”
Nonetheless, the Third Department held that while requiring the husband to pay a portion of the housing costs may have been appropriate, the trial court should stated its reasons why the presumptive award of temporary maintenance was “unjust or inappropriate” and the factors it considered.
The Appellate Division found that the combined award for maintenance, carrying costs and the expenses of the wife’s vehicle ($7,461 per month) — which was $3,073.50 per month in excess of the presumptive maintenance award ($4,387.50 per month) (without considering health insurance costs, child support or tuition) — was excessive. Accordingly, the court reduced the husband’s obligation to pay the carrying costs on the marital home by approximately one half of that $3,073.50 excess amount, or $1,540 per month, to $3,319 per month, leaving the $1,958 temporary maintenance award unchanged.
One interesting aspect of the decision was the issue of upkeep on the marital residence. The husband was required by the trial court to pay the monthly excess upkeep amount ($1,168), if any, into a separate account. The Third Department clarified that the upkeep payment was to be a part of the husband’s obligation to pay a total of $3,319 per month in carrying costs on the marital home. The Appellate Division stated in a footnote that wife, “of course,” is to be responsible for paying the remaining carrying costs on the home (other than the specified upkeep costs) from her temporary maintenance award. The parties’ respective pro rata obligations, in the event that the upkeep costs in any month exceed $1,168 and exceed any amount in the excess account, were to be deposited into a separate account pending resolution of equitable distribution issues. What makes this unusual is the amount of upkeep and the direction that any unspent funds get deposited into a separate account and, if not used for upkeep, any remaining balance “shall be returned to the wife when the house is sold.” Given that any post-commencement earnings are generally separate property of the party who had earned it, it is unclear what the trial court’s reasoning was with regard to those funds.
The propriety and fairness of awarding the wife the balance of any funds paid by the husband into the upkeep account is a matter to be resolved at trial as part of the overall equitable distribution award and, accordingly, the Third Department did not comment on that issue at this juncture.
The Appellate Division also found that the trial court had miscalculated the child support award and the parties’ pro rata shares of add-on expenses and remitted the case for immediate recalculation of the husband’s temporary child support obligation.
Unfortunately, it is fairly uncommon for the trial courts to make these types of mistakes related to temporary spousal support. The remedy, in most situations, is the trial.