Alimony can terminate when the payor proves the payee has habitually cohabited “in a relationship analogous to marriage” for a year, under Va. Code §20-109(A) and the identical language widely used in Separation Agreements, but only if, and when, the payor files a court case seeking termination, the Court of Appeals reiterates, reversing a trial court that had modified support retroactively to a date before the termination case was filed. Va. Code §20-112 clearly forbids any retroactive modification, the Court says.
The ex-husband argued that when he saw objectively verifiable clear and convincing evidence of the cohabitation, that evidence terminated the alimony under the terms of the Code and the Separation Agreement. But “The ‘clear and convincing’ burden is not met by convincing oneself, but by convincing a court”, Judge AtLee writes in Miller v. Green, unpublished (6/23/15).