Legal Question in Family Law in North Carolina
If my dad pays for my parent plus loan (which is obviously his loan/his name/his credit to be affected) is this legally considered in court as providing me (his adult-aged son) with money/financial assitance? Here is the context. My parents are divorced and seem to always go to court every few years. My dad shorted her a few hundred dollars in payment recently because I had open-heart surgery and he didn't have a strong financial year like he normally would. She took him to court for the 4k owed, and he was found in contempt of court. He says that basically it's because as long as he provides any assistance to me, that's money that could've gone to my mom. I am now self sufficient ( I start my engineering job in a week) but he claims that if they ever go to court again because he has to short her alimony for any reason,paying for the parent plus loan will be viewed as still providing me with financial assistance and will look negative. Is this true? It's his loan. My argument is any contribution I make to the parent plus loan is a "gift". If I was to pay the loan, and my parents went to court for a similar reason as before, the argument could be made that since his son is paying for the parent plus loan, he has more money in his pockets to pay his ex-wife...
1 Answer from Attorneys
Alimony is different from spousal support. Spousal support is among other factors based on need and is generally not fault based where as alimony traditionally is based on fault and is basically a punishment - as such, by definition it is supposed to hurt! But as the old saying goes - you can't get blood out of a rock so the amount of alimony is generally set based on the amount of income of the 'guilty' party. Income is money coming in. You paying the parent plus loan is not income to your father. Your father paying the parent plus loan would not result in some sort of 'credit' or reduction of income. What you are suggesting makes no logical sense - it would be the same as saying if you gave your dad a 4 grand trip to fabulous Las Vegas then somehow he magically has more money to with which to pay alimony or if he pays the 4 grand himself for the trip he should somehow receive some sort of 'credit' because he now has less money to pay alimony with.
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