{"id":1317,"date":"2026-04-08T10:56:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/?p=1317"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:56:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T15:56:48","slug":"retirement-and-spousal-maintenance-modifications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/08\/retirement-and-spousal-maintenance-modifications\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement and Spousal Maintenance Modifications"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Minnesota instituted a number of changes to the law relative to spousal maintenance <strong>effective August 1, 2024<\/strong>. One of these alters how the courts handle retirement of a party. The new statute allows for the modification of spousal maintenance upon the retirement of a former spouse who is paying spousal maintenance. The modification may (1) reduce; (2) suspend; (3) reserve; or (4) terminate the spousal maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Upon a motion to modify or terminate spousal maintenance, the courts will consider the following factors to determine the appropriate modification:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>whether the retirement is in good faith;<ul><li>The statute now states that there is a presumption that retirement was not in bad faith once the retiring spouse reaches full retirement age or customary age in their occupation.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li>whether the former spouse has attained the full retirement age under the Social Security Act (age 66 or 67) <strong>or<\/strong> the customary age for retirement in their occupation;<\/li><li>whether the former spouse has reasonably and prudently managed their assets since the dissolution of the marriage; and<\/li><li>the financial resources available to both former spouses.<ul><li>There is now a presumption that a person of full retirement age (whether the spouse paying or the spouse receiving maintenance) will use <strong>both income and assets<\/strong> to meet their needs. This is a change from the past statute and appears to be a change from case law as well, where previously only the assets not awarded during the divorce needed to be used to meet a person\u2019s needs.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As the retiring spouse, you may bring a motion to modify <strong>before you actually retire<\/strong>, as long as you have a <strong>specific date of retirement<\/strong>. The modification or termination can then be effective <em>on<\/em> the actual date of retirement. This is also a change, as previously a motion to modify could only be brought after retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If retirement is in your near future or your former\u2019s spouse\u2019s future, our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/legal-services-for-individuals\/family-law-and-divorce-lawyers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">family law attorneys<\/a> can help you determine what the next steps might look like. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Contact us<\/a> to see how H&amp;S can help you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota instituted a number of changes to the law relative to spousal maintenance effective August 1, 2024. One of these alters how the courts handle retirement of a party. The new statute allows for the modification of spousal maintenance upon the retirement of a former spouse who is paying spousal maintenance. The modification may (1) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[38,6],"tags":[225,224,11,238],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1319,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317\/revisions\/1319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hennsnoxlaw.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}