Being a real estate agent, also known as a realtor, is like being the world’s friendliest gambler. You might sell a house for a client, you might buy a house for a client, or you might not. Either way, real estate agents have to keep smiling through it all. Smiling through challenges is a distinct advantage real estate agents have in an Illinois divorce. Real estate agents are agreeable people who have wildly varying incomes. This creates a particular challenge when a realtor gets divorced because they want to make a deal…but cannot predict their income in order to sell that deal. Illinois realtors and their soon-to-be ex-spouses need to understand how Illinois divorce law impacts them in a divorce. Realtors Income In An Illinois Divorce Real estate agents do not collect a paycheck. Real estate agents receive commission checks from the sale or purchase of the properties they worked with. Those commission checks come in heavy during season (spring and summer) and barely come at all out of season (Illinois’ frigid winters). Furthermore, not all years are created equally. A massive drop in interest rates in 2020 created a flurry of residential real estate transactions for the next year. Subsequent high rates have quashed demand while owners with 2020s low mortgage rates are loath to sell. In 2024, 71% of real estate agents did not close even one home. In Illinois, child support and maintenance (formerly known as alimony) are based on both parties’ income. If one party is a real estate agent, how does an Illinois court determine their income when that income is changing every year? Illinois divorce courts can guess at an average income for the purposes of support in a process called “imputation of income” “If present income is uncertain, a court may impute income to the payor.” In re Marriage of Gosney, 394 Ill. App. 3d 1073, 1077 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009) Imputing income to a real estate agent is almost always done by looking at past years’ income. “[W]hen a party’s current income is difficult to ascertain or uncertain, a court may consider [the party’s] past earnings…Moreover, when a party’s income fluctuates from year to year, income averaging is an approved method to apply in determining the party’s current income.” In re Marriage of Gabriel, 2020 IL App (1st) 182710 (citations omitted). If an Illinois divorce court does impute income to a real […]
