Temporary Alimony Now Requires Written Findings: What Ehiabor v. Ehiabor Means for Florida Divorce Litigants

For years, a temporary support order in a Florida divorce often said very little. A dollar amount, a due date, and not much else. The First District Court of Appeal has now made clear that approach no longer holds. In Ehiabor v. Ehiabor, No. 1D2025-0117, 2026 Fla. App. LEXIS 4445 (Fla. 1st DCA June 10, 2026), the court held that Florida’s 2023 alimony reforms changed more than the menu of available alimony. They changed (increased!) what a trial judge must put in writing before ordering one spouse to pay the other during a pending case. The court reversed both a temporary alimony award and a $50,000 temporary fee award, and the reasoning carries lessons every family law litigant should absorb.

Here at Rhoden Law Group, much of our family law practice in Brevard County and the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit turns on temporary relief, which is the financial scaffolding that holds a case together while it moves toward final judgment. Ehiabor is a decision every divorcing spouse, and every practitioner drafting or attacking a temporary order, needs to understand.

First, how a statute and a court opinion fit together

If you look up Florida’s alimony law, you will be reading a statute, the text the Legislature enacted. A court opinion is something different. When a dispute arises over what the statute requires, an appellate court interprets the words written in the law and applies them to real facts, and that interpretation then guides every trial judge who follows. So there are two layers here. The statute, section 61.08, is the rule. Ehiabor is the court explaining what that rule now demands in a temporary support hearing and it’s order. Keep that distinction in mind, because the statute itself does not spell out a checklist for temporary alimony. The checklist below is the appeals court’s reading of the statute.

What happened

The parties had a short-term marriage and one child. By agreement, the husband, a physician, was already paying the wife $3,500 per month in child support and covering her rent. Citing the difference in their incomes, the wife moved (asked the court) for temporary alimony and temporary attorney’s fees while the case was pending.

At the hearing on temporary relief she testified that she needed an additional $658 per month to cover a new car payment. On the topic of attorney fees, she could not recall how much she had incurred (this is an ill prepared party!). Her counsel referred to a fee affidavit, marked as Wife’s Exhibit 12, reflecting roughly $30,000 in fees to date and about $38,900 more anticipated through the final hearing. Critically, counsel stated she intended to move the affidavit into evidence, got drawn into a colloquy with the court, and never actually did so before her hearing time ran out (that’s a problem for the attorney!).

The trial court awarded the wife $700 per month in temporary alimony and $50,000 in temporary attorney’s fees and costs. The alimony portion of the order contained no findings at all. It simply directed the husband to pay an additional $700 per month. The fee portion contained only a generic recitation that the wife had a need, the husband had the ability to pay, and the need was measured by past and anticipated fees. The husband took an immediate, non-final order to appeal under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(iii).

Lesson one: temporary alimony now requires written findings

Before 2023, First DCA authority treated temporary alimony as governed solely by section 61.071, the alimony pendente lite provision, which did not demand the written findings required for other forms of alimony.

The Legislature then changed the statute. Chapter 2023-315 added “temporary” to the list of alimony types in section 61.08 and added this directive:

“The court shall make written findings of fact regarding the basis for awarding a form or any combination of forms of alimony, including the type of alimony and the length of time for which the alimony is awarded.”

That is what the Legislature wrote. The question in Ehiabor was whether that statutory findings requirement now reaches temporary alimony, given that “temporary” had just been added to the same subsection. Reading the two statutes together, the court in this case held that it does. As the First DCA put it, “A plain reading of these provisions within subsection (1) demonstrates that a trial court must now make written findings of fact to support an award of temporary alimony.” The court distinguished the Williams case to the extent it rested on the older statute.

So what must a temporary alimony order actually contain? The court answered that too:

“Section 61.08 only requires a trial court to make written findings of fact that the party seeking temporary alimony has an actual need for it, in the amount to be awarded, and that the other party has the ability to pay that amount.”

Add ‘duration’, which the court said the order must also specify, and the practical checklist is need, amount, ability to pay, and the length of time the support runs, which may be ‘until final judgment’. The court was careful to keep the burden modest. These findings are not as extensive as those for bridge-the-gap, rehabilitative, or durational alimony (which are awarded in a final judgment) and the detailed statutory factors that govern those forms of alimony do not apply to a temporary award. What the order must contain is: enough detail for a reviewing (appellate) court to follow the trial judge’s reasoning.

The order in Ehiabor failed because it contained no findings at all. The gap between the $658 the wife testified she needed and the $700 she received made the point concrete, and the appeals court said it was left “unable to navigate the conflicting evidence to find clear support for the $700 per month award,” especially given the child support and rent the husband was already paying. It remanded for findings to support, modify, vacate, or set aside the award. So, back to the lower court is has gone – update after any additional findings will come, if published!

Lesson two: a fee award lives or dies on findings and on admitted evidence

The $50,000 fee award fell for two independent reasons.

First, the findings. Section 61.16 does not by its terms require written findings, but settled case law does. A temporary fee award must rest on findings of need, ability to pay, and reasonableness, the last meaning lodestar findings on a reasonable hourly rate and a reasonable number of hours. The full Rowe reasonableness analysis is not required for a temporary award, because the case has not been tried, and a party can raise any such gap after final judgment. But the order must still apportion past from anticipated fees rather than leave a reviewing court guessing. The generic recitation here did none of that. As the court bluntly observed, “we are left to guess how much of the $50,000 is apportioned for past fees and how much is apportioned for prospective fees.” That mirrors the defect the Fifth DCA reversed in Rotunda v. Rotunda, 259 So. 3d 216 (Fla. 5th DCA 2018).

Second, and more cautionary, the evidence. The court actually found that the record supported both need and ability to pay. The wife’s testimony about her debt, monthly deficit, and inability to fund her retainers established need, and the husband’s account and portfolio balances established ability, which he did not contest. What was missing was any proof of the hours and rates, because the fee affidavit was never moved into evidence.

Take note. A document is not evidence until it is admitted into evidence. T he fee affidavit in Ehiabor existed. It was prepared, it was marked as an exhibit, and counsel said she meant to introduce it. None of that mattered, because it never made it into the record. In the court’s words, “unsworn representations by counsel about factual matters do not have any evidentiary weight in the absence of a stipulation.” Here at Rhoden Law Group, this is the drum we beat with every client. Evidence is not any old piece of paper. Bring your proof, know your own numbers, stay organized, and if it qualifies we will submit it to the court. Organization is not housekeeping. It is the difference between a number that survives appeal and one that does not.

“Clients underestimate the temporary hearing. It sets the financial tone for the entire case, and after Ehiabor, an order that just states a number is an order built to be reversed.”
_{Bonnie Klein Rhoden, Rhoden Law Group}

The First DCA reversed the fee award on both grounds and authorized the trial court to take further evidence on remand.

A preservation point worth knowing

Ehiabor also cleared up a procedural trap. For a final judgment, Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.530 requires a motion for rehearing to preserve a challenge to missing findings. The Supreme Court briefly extended that rule to all orders in April 2023, then in October 2023 narrowed it back to findings “in the final judgment.” A temporary support order is nonfinal, rehearing motions are not even authorized for nonfinal orders, and a motion for reconsideration does not stop the 30-day appeal clock. Given that squeeze, the court held that a party appealing a nonfinal temporary support order need not preserve the absence of findings before appealing.

The court still encouraged litigants to file a motion for reconsideration promptly, because the trial judge can fix the omission while the matter is fresh and a temporary order creates no vested rights. If the deadline forces an appeal first, the appellant can ask the appellate court to relinquish jurisdiction so the trial court can reconsider.

“On the defense side, this is a gift. If the order does not show the court’s work on need, ability to pay, and reasonableness, you have a clean issue for a non-final appeal.”

Kenneth Rhoden, Esquire, Rhoden Law Group

What this means in Brevard County

A fair question is whether a First DCA decision governs a Brevard County case, since Brevard and the rest of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit sit in the Fifth District Court of Appeal. The answer comes in two parts.

The statute binds everyone. Section 61.08 was amended statewide, so the findings requirement is the law in the Fifth DCA exactly as it is in the First. A Brevard judge is applying the same statutory text.

The opinion is strong guidance, not a Fifth DCA mandate. Ehiabor is the First DCA’s interpretation of that statewide statute. It is binding in the First District and persuasive elsewhere. Under Pardo v. State, 596 So. 2d 665 (Fla. 1992), an out-of-district decision controls trial courts only while their own district has not ruled, so absent a contrary decision from the Fifth DCA, Brevard trial judges should follow Ehiabor. The Fifth DCA has not yet weighed in and could take its own view, but given that the rule flows from the statute itself, and that the First DCA leaned on Fifth DCA authority such as Rotunda to get there, the safer assumption is that the same expectations apply in our courtrooms now.

Practical takeaways

For the spouse seeking temporary support, build the record and ask for findings. Put need, the requested amount, the other party’s ability to pay, and the requested duration squarely before the court. On fees, get the affidavit admitted, on the record, and address rate, hours, and the split between past and anticipated work. Know your own numbers before you walk in.

For the spouse opposing or paying support, read the order closely. If it states a number without explaining the recipient’s need, your ability to pay, and the basis for the amount and duration, it may not survive a Rule 9.130 appeal. The same goes for a fee award that lacks lodestar findings, lumps past and future fees together, or rests on an affidavit that was never admitted.

A temporary order is no longer a place for shorthand. After Ehiabor, the findings are the order, and the evidence has to actually be in the record. If you are facing a temporary support or alimony question, or a financial fight over property and debts, preparation is everything.

All Things Family

At Rhoden Law Group, consults are always a courtesy, with day, evening, and weekend hours. If you have questions about temporary alimony, attorney’s fees, or any family law matter, we are here to help. Call or text us at (321) 549-3162, or reach us through the contact form on our website. All things family, that is what we do.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts.