Supreme Court of Greece: If the father doesn’t pay child support, the grandparents will

With a pioneering ruling, the Supreme Court of Greece ruled that if a divorced begetter fails to wage the magnitude of kid enactment determined by the courts for his underage child, the work is transferred to the grandparents, who indispensable past supply the kid enactment amount.

The judges astatine the Supreme Court were faced with the paradox that though the paternal grandparents were financially well-off and owned important existent estate, they inactive refused to wage the €280 monthly kid enactment for their granddaughter. They adjacent went truthful acold arsenic to entreaty to the Supreme Court successful bid to overturn a Court of Appeals determination requiring them to wage this humble sum, which was insignificant successful examination to their fiscal capacity.

The case

In October 2005, the mates got joined and six years later, successful December 2011, they had a babe girl. Four years aft that, their matrimony was dissolved by tribunal decision, which granted custody of the insignificant to the parent and simultaneously ruled that the begetter indispensable wage monthly kid enactment of €500 during the play 2015–2017. However, the begetter lone paid the afloat €500 initially—up to February 2016—and past connected his ain inaugural reduced the magnitude to €200 per month.

The erstwhile woman turned to the courts, which issued a outgo bid against the begetter for the magnitude of €4,774. But the parent was incapable to proceed with forced execution, since her ex-husband had “no disposable assets successful Greece.”

The parent had been moving successful a tourism concern anterior to her daughter’s birth, with a monthly wage of €630 (including Christmas and Easter bonuses and vacation pay). The father, during their marriage, worked successful the household business—technically registered successful his mother’s name—and successful 2016 helium moved to Bulgaria, wherever helium and his member acceptable up a akin concern to the 1 operating successful Greece.

In Bulgaria, according to the tribunal decision, the begetter lives a beingness of luxury and owns costly cars. He besides participates successful car rallies, which the tribunal described arsenic a “very costly hobby” that requires important ongoing fiscal support. However, “he takes attraction to conceal oregon not state his income nether his ain name.”

After the divorce, the parent and girl moved successful with the mother’s retired parents. Her begetter is simply a pensioner and her parent works arsenic a cleaner. They person taken connected each expenses for the girl and granddaughter’s upkeep—food, clothing, and more.

The paternal gramps is simply a pensioner receiving a monthly pension of €800 and earns different €1,056 per period from rental income. The paternal grandma is the ineligible proprietor of the household business. According to their associated taxation instrumentality for 2015, she declared gross income of €206,007.

They besides person important existent estate. The gramps owns six apartments (each nether 100 quadrate meters), 50% of a spot measuring 806 quadrate meters, a tiny stock successful different house, 33% of a 384-square-meter crippled of land, and a car with a 3,500 cc engine. The grandma owns the different 50% of the 806-square-meter property, 2 apartments of 135 and 70 quadrate meters respectively, 50% of a 77-square-meter apartment, and different car.

The grandparents from the paternal broadside argued that the maternal grandparents could besides lend to the child’s support. They claimed that the mother’s begetter receives a €500 pension and that her parent earns €1,000 monthly cleaning houses, and truthful should beryllium capable to lend arsenic well.

The Thessaloniki Court of Appeals ruled that, according to the Greek Civil Code, successful divorcement cases wherever the fiscal means of adjacent 1 genitor are insufficient to screen the child’s needs, the work to supply enactment falls to the adjacent ascendants successful line—that is, the grandparents—who are jointly liable for the child’s enactment successful adjacent parts, to the grade the parents cannot conscionable their obligations.

The confirmation

The Supreme Court confirmed that, of the €560 established arsenic the indispensable kid enactment amount, the begetter would lend €200, the parent would lend €80 based connected her income, and the paternal grandparents indispensable screen the remaining €280 (200+80+280).

The Supreme Court emphasized successful its ruling that the father’s parents “are financially well-off, possessing important existent property and with full monthly income exceeding €2,000, whereas the maternal grandparents are incapable to lend to their granddaughter’s enactment owed to their constricted existent income.”

Ultimately, the A1 Civil Division of the Supreme Court rejected each arguments from the paternal grandparents seeking to annul the Court of Appeals’ decision.