Reconciling wipes out a permanent alimony obligation, and nothing else.
What the Statute Reaches
OCGA 19-6-12 provides that the subsequent voluntary cohabitation of spouses, where there has been no total divorce between them, “shall annul and set aside all provision made either by deed or decree for permanent alimony.”
Those last four words are the whole of it. As the Court of Appeals put it in Adcock v. Adcock, 259 Ga. App. 514 (2003), the statute “provides authority to set aside provision made in the separation agreement for permanent alimony alone.”
A Property Settlement Survives
In Adcock, a couple separated after nine years, the husband filed for divorce, and they signed a separation agreement dividing their property and providing that neither would pay alimony. The wife quitclaimed her half of the marital residence to him and moved out. They then reconciled and lived together until he died four months later.
She argued the reconciliation had undone the deed. It had not. The agreement barred alimony by its own terms and there was no evidence the house was transferred as alimony, so “the reconciliation of the parties is insufficient to annul the conveyance.”
Neither Does an Agreement That Bought the Reconciliation
Property changing hands as the price of getting back together is treated differently again. In McClain v. McClain, 237 Ga. 80 (1976), a wife dismissed her divorce case under an agreement paying her $50,000 in cash, half the marital home, a $250,000 trust, and her attorney’s fees, in exchange for resuming the marriage and giving up future alimony.
She filed again two years later. The Georgia Supreme Court held the waiver stood, because the agreement “was entered into to effect a reconciliation of the marriage.”
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!