Maintenance is a complicated subject. This information sheet can therefore only provide a general overview.
1. When must maintenance be paid?
Maintenance must be paid if the prerequisites under 1, 2 and 3 are met:
Prerequisite 1: Anyone claiming maintenance must be in need. A person in need is someone who does not have sufficient income and no major assets. The limits vary and depend on the type of maintenance in question – maintenance for children or adults, for example.
Prerequisite 2: The person who has to pay maintenance must be solvent. You are solvent if you have sufficient income. Here, too, the limits vary and depend on the type of maintenance.
Prerequisite 3: The obligation to pay maintenance is regulated by law. Maintenance can only be claimed and must only be paid if this is regulated by law.
2. Who has to pay maintenance? Who receives maintenance?
The following maintenance obligations are regulated by law:
Maintenance for minor children (under 18)
If you live with your child, you pay rent and daily costs, i.e. you pay „maintenance in kind“. Anyone who does not live with their child must pay maintenance in the form of money! The amount of maintenance depends on your own income and the number of children. It is deter- mined by a court or the youth welfare office. If you have children under 18, the obligation to pay maintenance is stricter.
NB: There is also a stricter obligation to pay maintenance for unmarried children up to the age of 21 who are still at school and live in the household of one of their parents.
This means: If you are liable to pay maintenance, you must do everything possible to earn enough. If necessary, you must use up all your income, keeping only what is considered to be the mini- mum subsistence level. You must work overtime, take on a part-time job or use your own assets. If you are unemployed, you must do everything you can to find work and provide evidence of this! Failure to do this is a criminal offence (= breach of maintenance obligations). This can lead to criminal charges and a conviction.
NB: Child maintenance must be paid to the person with whom the child lives. This is often the child‘s mother. Their income is irrelevant for the maintenance payment. This also applies after a separation.
Other maintenance obligations
Other maintenance obligations are not so strict. There are different limits as to the income above which maintenance must be paid and whether assets must be used.
Maintenance for separated spouses and divorcees
Note: This of course also applies to same-sex marriages!
After a separation and also after a divorce, you may still be obliged to pay maintenance. Espe- cially if the two incomes differ. The person with the higher income has to pay part of their income as maintenance. How long maintenance has to be paid depends on how long the marriage lasted. In principle, every divorced person must do everything possible to earn enough on their own so that they can live without maintenance payments. However, this may not always be possible or only to a limited extent (e.g. due to age, illness, bringing up joint children, caring for a disabled adult child). In this case, maintenance must still be paid.
Maintenance for the mother or father of a joint child
If the parents of a child are not married and do not live together, the parent with whom the child lives is entitled to maintenance (as they are looking after the child). However, maintenance must only be paid if the parent with whom the child lives does not have enough income of their own. The entitlement to maintenance almost always ends on the child‘s third birthday. Maintenance only has to be paid for a longer time if the child needs intensive care (e.g. for children requiring special care).
Maintenance for parents
Children of parents who are in need of care are obliged to pay maintenance. But: Some pay- ment obligations are deducted from the annual income, e.g. maintenance payments for your own children. If you have at least € 100,000 left over after these payments, have been deducted, you will have to pay maintenance for your parents.
Other maintenance obligations
In theory, grandparents are also liable to pay maintenance for their grandchildren and vice versa. In practice, however, this has little relevance.
NB: There is no maintenance obligation between siblings!
Obligations to pay maintenance to more than one person simultaneously
If you are liable to pay maintenance to several people at the same time, the most important obligations have priority. The law stipulates an order of priority for such cases. The group of persons with the highest priority must be paid first. Persons with a lower priority only receive maintenance if there is still money left over.
- Priority 1: Minor unmarried children and children up to the age of 21 who still go to school and live in the household of one parent;
- Priority 2: Parents who are looking after a child and spouses and divorced spouses in the case of a long marriage;
- Priority 3: Spouses and divorced spouses who do not fall under no. 2;
- Priority 4: Children who do not fall under no. 1 (e.g. children at university or in training);
- Priority 5: Grandchildren and other descendants;
- Priority 6: Parents.
If there is not enough money to fulfil all maintenance obligations towards persons with equal priority, the amount of money is divided up (so-called deficiency cases).
3. Who decides how much maintenance must be paid?
In principle, you can always reach an agreement voluntarily! If this is not possible, a court or the youth welfare office (in the case of children) or the social welfare office (in the case of par- ents) decides on the amount of maintenance. If the person entitled to maintenance receives citizen‘s benefit (Bürgergeld), the job centre assumes responsibility for the maintenance claim and demands maintenance from the person obliged to pay.
4. How much maintenance must be paid?
In principle, the amount of maintenance is determined individually. However, it is usually cal- culated on the basis of the „Düsseldorfer Table“. www.olg-duesseldorf.nrw.de/infos/Duesseldorfer_Tabelle
5. Can the amount of maintenance be increased or reduced?
Anyone who is liable to pay maintenance is obliged to disclose their income on request. If the income has increased significantly, more maintenance can be demanded. If the person paying maintenance earns less through no fault of their own (for at least 6 months) or if other main- tenance obligations arise, the amount of maintenance can be reduced.
NB: Anyone who has to pay maintenance must do everything in their power to be able to meet their obligations. If you become unemployed, for example, you must try hard to find a new job. You must also be able to prove that you are looking for work.
If the amount of maintenance is to be changed, it always makes sense to talk to each other and try to reach a voluntary agreement. If this is not possible, the body that set the amount of maintenance is also responsible for changing it (see No. 3). In this case, it also makes sense to instruct a specialised law firm (family law) to handle the matter. If you are on a low income, you can apply to the local court where you live for advice and legal aid for the lawyer‘s fees and court costs.
6. What happens if you do not pay the maintenance?
If the amount of maintenance set is not paid, the payment can be enforced by attaching prop- erty or income, for example. The court will then determine how much the debtor has left. Only this (usually very low) amount is then paid out, the rest is attached. In this case it is advisable to seek help from a debt counselling centre or a specialist law firm.
