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Maintenance Buyout: Lump Sum or Monthly Payments?

Is a lump sum today worth more or less than the monthly maintenance it would replace? Every piece below can be linked to, so it opens in a window on your reader's screen, current as of the record. No form to fill in.

2026 law · Reviewed September 7, 2026 · The full page, with methodology and sources · the terms · All tools

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The monthly amount, the months left, a discount rate, a stop-early allowance, and a proposed lump sum in; the stream's value today, the value after the allowance, the lump sum's monthly equivalent, and the crossover rate out, with both drawn over the term. In a frame it carries no cookies, no tracking, and a visible link back to the methodology. Your site has to allow frames; most do. The link that opens it in a small window is on the professionals page.

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In plain words.
Money paid over years is worth less than the same total paid today, because money in hand can be invested. This tool adds up the monthly payments, discounts them at a rate you set, and shows what the whole stream is worth now. It takes off an allowance for the chance the payments stop early, which they do if the receiving spouse remarries or moves in with a partner, or if either spouse dies. Then it shows what monthly payment a proposed lump sum would replace, and the rate of return at which the two come out equal.
Why it matters.
A buyout is a real choice in many settlements. The paying spouse is done, with no petitions to modify and nothing owed if the other remarries. The receiving spouse gets certainty and control of the money, and gives up the chance the payments would have run their full course. The number that decides it is the discount rate, and each side has a different one.
An example.
$2,000 a month for 72 months adds up to $144,000. At 5 percent it is worth about $124,000 today, and about $112,000 after a 10 percent allowance for stopping early. A $110,000 lump sum would replace about $1,770 a month over the same term, and the two are equal at a rate of about 9.3 percent.
Where it stops.
Every input is an assumption. It ignores tax on what the lump sum earns, changes to the monthly amount by a later court order, and how each side would actually invest or borrow. For an order entered after 2018, neither form is deductible to the payer or taxed to the receiver, so tax does not tip the comparison.

Everything here reads from one reviewed record, so a copied piece carries its year and its review date. When the law moves, the embed updates by itself; a copied table or chart keeps the year in its caption. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.