"A father is a banker provided by nature." — French proverb
Every adult knows perfectly well that having children creates not only rights but also duties. Under German law, both parents are entitled, and indeed required, to take an equal part in raising and supporting their minor children. That is how many families with children genuinely live, splitting every duty toward their offspring equally between them. The duties of raising and supporting children remain in full force even after the parents divorce. By agreement between the former spouses, or by court order, the child remains living with one parent, while the other is obliged to take part in the child's life to an agreed extent and to pay child support toward the child's upkeep. Naturally, the parent obliged to pay support cannot simply be left with nothing to live on. That is why the parent paying support (statistically, most often the father) must, in any event, retain at least €1,100 if employed, and at least €800 if receiving unemployment benefits. Broadly speaking, both former spouses are meant to contribute financially to the child's life. The parent the child lives with (most often the mother) is understood to cover the day-to-day necessary expenses and everyday care — that is, housing, food, essentials, upbringing, and so on. The other parent is responsible for the remaining necessary extra expenses, such as summer holidays, extracurricular activities, tutors, and major purchases the child needs. The duty to pay child support does not lapse where the child lives abroad with the mother. In that case, the amount of support payable is determined with reference to the cost of living in the country of residence. Since child support is meant to meet the child's actual living needs rather than to enrich anyone, the amount must correspond to the standard of living where the child lives. If that standard of living is comparable to the standard in Germany, support will be paid in full according to the Düsseldorf table used in Germany; if it is lower, the amount of support will be reduced accordingly.
Are there parents in Germany who persistently refuse to pay child support?
Unfortunately, yes, and not a few. In such cases, the state pays child support on the parent's behalf for a time. Later, if it turns out there are no objective, lawful grounds for the non-paying parent to withhold support, the state recovers the money it advanced from that parent by compulsion, and then uses state enforcement mechanisms to compel the parent to pay support on a regular basis going forward. Exactly the same rule applies to fathers whose children were born outside marriage and who have never lived with them. Where a child's biological father denies, for whatever reason, being "connected" to the minor, and the child's mother insists that this particular man is the father, the court orders a medical assessment whose results will establish, with certainty, whether the woman's account is accurate. In this article, we would like to describe one such case from our extensive practice in family-law matters.
A woman came to our law firm — let's call her Alyona — who lives permanently with her eight-year-old son Yegor (name changed) in the Republic of Kazakhstan, in the city of Almaty. What brought the young woman to our firm was a series of unsuccessful attempts to hold her child's father to account. A middle-aged man — let's call him Alexander — lived permanently in Germany and, according to our client, knew perfectly well that his son existed, yet flatly refused to contribute to his upkeep. Alyona's story resembles thousands of others. She had met a young man when she herself was still very young. After a few romantic dates, she fell for him head over heels, secretly dreaming, unbeknownst to anyone, of years of happy family life together — all the more so since, during one of their moonlit walks, the young man had proposed to her, half in jest, perhaps half in earnest. Life, however, often rewrites our far-reaching plans. Instead of news of an upcoming wedding, news arrived of an unplanned pregnancy. Alyona had not expected this turn of events at all — at the time she was only 18 and in her first year at university. Fortunately, her parents stood by their still very young daughter and supported her in time. They firmly resolved, and kept their promise, to help their daughter and grandson through the early years. It is probably unnecessary to add that, once he received this unexpectedly "pleasant" news, the trail of the would-be "husband" went cold without a word. While Yegor was still small, the young woman had no contact with Alexander whatsoever. Some time after her son's birth, she tried calling him, hoping to persuade her former fiancé to at least come and see his child, but was met with a "polite" refusal and a request not to bother him again in future. She had no choice but to face her new responsibilities alone and accept her new life as it was. The thought that Yegor had a father he had never once seen crossed her mind from time to time, but she resolved for herself that "you cannot force someone to care," and so took no steps to track the young man down.
Roughly 8 years after all this, Alyona happened to learn, among a group of old acquaintances, that her former fiancé had moved to Germany a few years earlier. Her parents had by then retired and could no longer fully support her and her child, while Alyona herself worked part-time at a café. Meanwhile the boy was growing by the day, and the expenses kept mounting. She decided to approach Alexander and ask him to take part regularly, if not in raising the boy, then at least in supporting him financially. By then, the man had started a family of his own in Germany and wanted to hear nothing about financial obligations toward a child with whom he had had no connection for years. By this point, our future client had matured into a more resilient young woman who had learned firsthand how hard it was to raise and support a son on her own. She made the firm and correct decision not to give up, and to see the matter through to the end. Alyona came to us hoping for qualified legal help and support. A lawyer specializing in family-law matters got to work without delay.
First, he prepared and sent Alexander a formal letter of demand, requiring him to get in touch with Alyona and reach an agreement on all matters relating to the child's support. Before long, however, we received an unambiguous reply stating that our man had no connection to the child whatsoever — that he was not Yegor's father — and that there could therefore be no question of his supporting him.
The next step taken in our client's interest was to apply to the court to obtain a ruling ordering and setting the amount of child support at a court-determined level. Since the man continued to deny paternity, at our lawyer's request the court ordered a medical assessment to establish Alexander's paternity with certainty. In granting this request, the court permitted the minor boy to undergo the test at a medical facility attached to the German Embassy in Kazakhstan, while Alexander had to provide the corresponding samples at a specialized medical facility in Germany. As expected, the results of the assessment confirmed, with near-100-percent certainty, that Yegor was indeed Alexander's son. The now-established father had no room left to maneuver — he would have to pay child support for his son, and, as is required where paternity is established by court order, retroactive to the date of the child's birth. In addition, as the losing party in the proceedings, Alexander would now have to reimburse our client's full legal costs for the case, as well as the costs of the medical assessment. It is worth noting that had he voluntarily acknowledged paternity, these costs could have been avoided entirely, and support would only have been payable from the date Alyona filed her application.
From Our Firm's Practice
Are there parents in Germany who persistently refuse to pay child support? Unfortunately, yes, and not a few — but the state and the courts have effective mechanisms to compel paternity testing and recover support even from abroad.
We were glad for our client that this difficult story ended well for her, and we wished her continued resilience and patience in a task as important as raising a future man — a pillar of his own family to come.
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