Charleston County · Alimony and Spousal Support

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How is alimony actually decided in South Carolina?

South Carolina has no alimony formula. A family court judge weighs thirteen statutory factors under Section 20-3-130 and decides what support, if any, fits your marriage. There is no calculator and no fixed percentage, which means the work of an alimony case is evidence, not arithmetic.

• Adultery bars the cheating spouse from receiving alimony. It does not automatically award alimony to the other spouse.
• The adultery bar has a deadline. It runs until the earliest of a signed written property or marital settlement agreement, or entry of a permanent order.
• You do not need money of your own to begin. A court can order the other spouse to pay attorney fees and costs.
• Support does not require a fault based divorce filing. An action for separate maintenance and support allows the Court to order support while you stay married.

You have opened the calculator on your phone more than once this month. Rent somewhere in West Ashley, the car, the insurance you have never once paid yourself, and a number for groceries you are honestly guessing at. It does not come out. You close the app and go back to bed.

Underneath the arithmetic is a question you have not said out loud. You want to know whether the years you spent not earning anything, the job you did not take, the move you agreed to, the degree you stopped halfway through, count for anything at all in a courtroom. Or whether the law will look at you and see somebody who simply chose not to work.

Talk to Leslie →

Here is what actually decides it.

The plain-English definition

Alimony in South Carolina is court-ordered support paid by one spouse to the other, awarded at a judge's discretion after weighing thirteen factors the statute names. There is no formula and no calculator. State law defines five distinct forms of alimony, each with its own end date and its own rules about whether it can ever be changed, and one form of misconduct bars it outright.

Three things that shape every alimony case in South Carolina:

• There is no formula. Child support has guidelines and a worksheet. Alimony has thirteen factors under Section 20-3-130(C) and a judge. A website that hands you a number is producing an estimate the statute does not support.
• Five forms, not one. Section 20-3-130(B) sets out six categories: periodic, lump sum, rehabilitative, reimbursement, separate maintenance and support, and a catch-all for any other arrangement the court considers just. Which one you ask for decides whether it can ever be modified.
• Adultery is a bar, not a factor. Section 20-3-130(A) says no alimony may be awarded to a spouse who commits adultery. Everything else on the list gets weighed. This one closes the door.

From inside the courthouse

The bar has a deadline, and it is the part people arrive not knowing. Adultery counts only if it happens before the earliest of two events: the formal signing of a written property or marital settlement agreement, or entry of a permanent order. Section 20-3-130(C)(10) shuts the same door on fault generally. There is a date after which your personal life stops being evidence, and most people go through the entire case without ever being told a date exists.

The part I would rather tell you now than later

Alimony is meant to keep you close to the life you had. It is not meant to improve on it. That sentence cuts against whichever side of this you are sitting on, and it is the most useful thing to understand before you spend a dollar fighting about the number.

If you are the spouse who stopped working, the hard part is this. Courts look at what you are capable of earning, not only at what you are earning right now. In March 2026 the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed a permanent alimony award to a spouse who held a professional degree and real experience but had not seriously looked for fuller work, finding she had the capacity to support herself. That is the law as it stands today, though the Supreme Court has granted certiorari and will review it. A degree you have not used in fifteen years is still a degree. A license you let lapse is still a license you once held. Your resume matters even when it is cold, and so does whether you actually tried.

If you are the spouse who will be writing the check, the hard part is different. Periodic alimony in South Carolina has no automatic end date. It runs until remarriage, until continued cohabitation, until death, or until a judge changes it. You have probably read that the legislature is fixing this. Six alimony bills are pending in the current session, three of which would cap or eliminate periodic alimony outright. Every one of them is sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, and not one has become law. Plan your case under the statute that exists.

Here's the thing most people don't realize: the person you started seeing after you separated can end your alimony claim. The bar runs until the earliest of a signed written agreement or a permanent order, and being separated is not either of those things. People move out, wait eight months, meet someone, and hand the other side a complete defense without knowing they did it. If you are in a case right now, this is the paragraph to reread.

What waiting actually costs, plainly

People wait on alimony for a reason that makes sense to them. Filing feels like the aggressive act, and staying still feels like keeping things civil while you figure it out. I understand that. Here is what the waiting is actually doing.

• The temporary hearing sets the number you live onSection 20-3-120 lets either spouse ask for alimony and suit money while the case is pending. Whatever a judge orders at that first hearing is what you both budget around for months, and it quietly becomes the number everyone treats as normal.
• Your financial declaration is sworn, and it is due fastRule 20 of the family court rules requires a current financial declaration from every party whose finances are at issue, filed before or at the first hearing or within forty five days of service, whichever comes first. It is signed under oath. A rushed or padded one damages your credibility on every issue in the case, not just this one.
• The fault clock does not pause while you thinkSeparation does not stop it. Conduct still counts until the earliest of a signed written agreement or a permanent order. Waiting a year to file is a year in which both of your private lives remain admissible.
• Paying your own way proves you canThis is the one that catches people, and it is the reason not to wait. If you separate and cover your own bills for months with no contribution from the other spouse, you have shown a judge a person who has demonstrably lived without support. It does not matter that you did it by draining a savings account or borrowing from your mother. What the record shows is the months you managed. Ask for temporary support early instead of proving you can go without it.
• Money is not the wall you think it isSection 20-3-130(H) lets a court order one party to pay the other's attorney fees, expert fees, and costs, and Section 20-3-120 covers suit money while the case runs. Being the spouse without access to the checkbook is not the same as being the spouse who cannot fight.

None of that is here to frighten you into calling. It is how these cases actually run, and you should know it before you decide.

You do not need a number in your head before you get in touch. Getting you one is the work. Book a strategy call →

How an alimony case actually moves through Charleston County

Your case is heard at the Charleston County Family Court, 100 Broad Street, Ninth Judicial Circuit. Park in the garage attached to the courthouse. Two ways in: off Meeting Street beside Hibernian Hall, or off Queen across from 82 Queen. If both are full, another garage sits down Queen past King, on the left.

1. Decide which form of alimony you are asking for.Periodic support that lasts and can be modified is a different case from a finite sum that cannot. Rehabilitative alimony to finish a degree is a different case again. Get precise about which of the five you are actually asking for before anybody drafts anything.
2. Choose divorce or separate maintenance.South Carolina has no legal separation as such. What it has is an action for separate maintenance and support, which can order support without ending the marriage. For some families that is the right first move. For others it just adds a case.
3. Build the financial declaration honestly, and build it first.Form SCCA 430 is where your case is actually won or lost, and people treat it as paperwork. Understate your expenses to look reasonable and you have capped your own claim. Inflate them and you will be cross examined line by line.
4. The temporary hearing.Not sooner than twenty one days and not later than forty five days from the date the request for hearing goes to the Clerk, under Rule 21, SCRFC. It runs on sworn written statements and financial declarations rather than live testimony, with page limits tied to the length of hearing you requested. Fifteen minutes gets each side ten pages, thirty gets twenty, and exhibits are capped separately at thirty. Everything else is deadlines: twenty calendar days' notice on the motion, the return ten calendar days out, supporting affidavits five business days out. That is your entire preparation calendar, and it is shorter than the forty five days makes it sound.
5. Proving what the household actually earns.This is the real fight, and in Charleston it is rarely a salary. It is a bonus structure at Boeing, vested stock that shows up on a W-2 in an odd month, a housing allowance at Joint Base Charleston that never looked like income, tips on East Bay, a commission year that was unusually good or unusually bad, a business whose owner sets his own draw. Judges here have seen every version of it. Documents move them and adjectives do not.
6. Mediation, then a final hearing.Most cases end here, which is usually better, because settling keeps the decision in your hands instead of a judge's. It also means you can build terms a statute would never give you. The Supreme Court's benchmark order expects family court cases finished within 365 days of filing.

There is no calculator, and that is the point

People arrive wanting a number and leave understanding a list. The list is the honest answer, because it is what a judge is actually required to work through.

A number without the factors behind it is a guess with a decimal point in it.

What that means practically is that the work of an alimony case is evidence, one factor at a time. The length of the marriage is a document. The standard of living during it is a document. Earning capacity is a document and sometimes an expert. None of that is glamorous and all of it is what moves the number.

What you actually need in the room

I have been licensed in South Carolina since 1998, I tried cases in family court and general sessions as a public defender, and I opened this firm in 2009. Family court is my practice, not a sideline.

I also came to it the hard way. My own marriage ended while I had two small children, no job, and no money. That is not a line in a bio. That is the exact arithmetic on this page, done at my own kitchen table, and it is why I do not tell people the comfortable thing about support. Being told early that a number is not realistic is worth more than being told late that it was not.

The public defender years are the other half of it. That is where I learned to try a case, protect a record, and think on my feet when a hearing goes somewhere nobody planned for.

My goal is to help you find your way through family court and to a happier life. So I do not measure a case by how fast it closed. I measure it by what your life looks like a year after it does.

I screen for conflicts and calendar conflicts before anyone pays me anything, and I turn down cases where I am not the right lawyer. You will not be handed off to staff, and I do not carry a volume caseload. A smaller docket is what makes room for the work a case actually needs.

• South Carolina Bar, 1998
• 28 years in practice
• USC School of Law, J.D.
• College of Charleston, B.A.
• U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
• CJA Panel Representative, Charleston Division
• Former public defender, 1999 to 2002

Three terms worth understanding before anything else

Periodic alimony

Ongoing payments with no set end date. They stop on the remarriage or continued cohabitation of the supported spouse, or on either spouse's death, and either party can ask a judge to raise or lower them if circumstances change.

This is the form people mean when they say permanent alimony, and the term is misleading. It has no automatic finish line, but it is the most changeable of the five. Lump sum alimony is the opposite. Once set it survives remarriage and cannot be modified.Section 20-3-130(B)

Continued cohabitation

The statute defines it as the supported spouse residing with another person in a romantic relationship for ninety or more consecutive days. When it happens, periodic alimony ends.

The statute also anticipates the obvious workaround. A court can still find cohabitation where there is evidence the couple periodically separates in order to get around the ninety day requirement. Both sides of this question show up in Charleston County more than any other post-divorce fight I see.Section 20-3-150

Financial declaration, form SCCA 430

A sworn statement of your income, expenses, assets, and debts, filed by every party whose finances are at issue. It is the document a judge is actually reading while your lawyer talks.

For a Mount Pleasant family this is where a school tuition line, a boat payment, and two car notes stop being lifestyle and start being evidence about the standard of living during the marriage, which is one of the thirteen factors. Fill it out as though it will be read aloud, because it will be.Form SCCA 430

Questions people actually ask me

My spouse controls all the money and already has a lawyer. How am I supposed to fight this?

The court can order the other spouse to pay your attorney fees and costs under Section 20-3-130(H), and suit money while the case is pending under Section 20-3-120.

If there is a marital estate, the spouse without access to the checkbook is not the spouse who cannot fight. Bring what you know about the money even if it is fragments, screenshots, and a bank name.

How much alimony will I get, or have to pay?

South Carolina has no alimony formula. A judge weighs thirteen factors under Section 20-3-130(C) and decides.

The factors include the length of the marriage, both spouses' ages and health, education and earning potential, the standard of living during the marriage, what property each of you ends up with, and who has the children and when. Nobody can give you a firm number on a first call, because the number comes out of evidence that has not been gathered yet. What I can give you early is a range and the reasons for it.

My spouse cheated. Does that mean I automatically get alimony?

No. Adultery bars the cheating spouse from receiving alimony. It does not create an entitlement for the other spouse.

This is the most common misunderstanding I hear, and people spend real money on it. Proving adultery removes their claim. Yours still has to be built on the thirteen factors like anyone else's. There are also narrow defenses to the bar, condonation and connivance among them, so a spouse who knew and forgave, or who encouraged it, has a harder argument than they expect.

We have been separated for months. I have started seeing someone. Is that a problem?

Yes, potentially a fatal one. The bar runs until the earliest of a formally signed written agreement or entry of a permanent order, and a separation is neither.

I would rather have this conversation with you in week one than read about it in an affidavit in month nine. If it has already happened, tell your lawyer immediately. There is often something to be done about the timing of the case. There is nothing to be done about a surprise.

I have not worked in twelve years. Will a judge expect me to get a job?

Probably, in some form. Courts look at earning capacity, not only current earnings, and rehabilitative alimony exists specifically to fund the gap.

That is not the whole answer though. A twenty six year marriage where you raised four children and moved twice for someone else's career is a different case from a six year marriage with a paused nursing license. Duration and what you gave up are two of the thirteen factors. The honest planning question is not whether you will work. It is what you will realistically earn, how long it takes to get there, and who funds the runway.

Can I get support without filing for divorce?

Yes. An action for separate maintenance and support can order support without ending the marriage, and it is one of the five named forms under Section 20-3-130(B).

People choose it for insurance coverage, for religious reasons, or because they are not ready. Understand the tradeoff. That support ends if you later divorce, and the case does not resolve the marriage, so you may be paying for two proceedings instead of one.

Does alimony end when I retire?

Not automatically. Section 20-3-170 makes retirement grounds for a hearing on whether circumstances have changed, and lists factors the court weighs.

Those include whether retirement was contemplated when alimony was awarded, your age and health, whether it is mandatory or voluntary, and the actual effect on your income. Retiring at sixty two to reduce a payment is a different conversation from a mandatory retirement at sixty five.

Is alimony still tax deductible?

Not for agreements or orders executed after December 31, 2018. The payer cannot deduct it and the recipient does not report it as income.

Bottom line? A dollar of alimony now costs the payer a full dollar, which changes what a reasonable settlement looks like compared to what your friend got in 2015. Older orders keep the old treatment unless a modification expressly says otherwise. If you are modifying a pre-2019 order, that sentence in the document is worth real money to somebody. This page is not tax advice, and a question like that belongs with a CPA as well as a lawyer.

Whatever is happening in your case is already moving. You need to take action to impact its direction. Let's talk →

Before you get in touch

I don't take every case. Here's why that's good for you.

I keep a deliberately limited practice, and two things get screened before you pay me anything. If I have already met with your spouse, I cannot take your case. If my calendar collides with a hearing already set, I may not be able to take it. Neither should cost you a dollar to find out.

The strategy session itself is an hour with me or with my associate, Alison Joanis, never with staff. It is a paid session, and it is paid because it is real work. I will ask direct questions, give you my honest read on where your case is strong and where it is not, and you will leave knowing your next move. You are also deciding whether you want to work with me. That runs both directions.

If I am not the right lawyer for you, I will give you a name. Not a directory. A person I know.

If it is a match, we move fast. Because the other side already is.

Key Takeaways

• No calculator exists. Thirteen statutory factors under Section 20-3-130 decide alimony, so what you bring to the judge matters more than any number you arrive with.
• An affair cuts one way. It closes the door on the cheating spouse receiving alimony, and on its own it does nothing to open a door for the other spouse.
• A new relationship during separation can still count against you, because the fault window stays open until an agreement is signed or a permanent order is entered.
• Alimony stopped being tax deductible for orders executed after December 31, 2018, which changes what any settlement number is actually worth.

Stop doing this math
on your own.
Let's talk.

One hour with an attorney. You leave with an honest read on what support looks like in your case, the factors that actually apply to your marriage, and a clear first move you can make this week.Talk to Leslie →

Confidential. No pressure. No obligation. Serving Charleston, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Summerville, Moncks Corner, and Goose Creek.

Sarji Law Firm, LLC
174 East Bay Street, Suite 300A, Charleston, South Carolina 29401

Charleston County Family Court sits at 100 Broad Street, Ninth Judicial Circuit. Broad runs west off East Bay, and the courthouse garage takes you in from Meeting Street beside Hibernian Hall or from Queen across from 82 Queen.

• South Carolina Bar, 1998
• Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals
• CJA Panel Representative, Charleston Division

• The different types of spousal support in South Carolina
• What are the alimony rules in South Carolina
• Factors considered in awarding alimony
• How long do you have to be married to get alimony
• Charleston child custody attorney