Family law — and in particular the question of child support (German: Unterhalt) payable by one parent — is one of the core practice areas of our law firm. The duty of parents to support their minor children is enshrined in law. Where the relationship between the parents ends on good terms, there is usually no need to resort to legal provisions to settle any given question. But where neither side is willing to make concessions, resolving the problem falls back on the sanctions the law provides to compel a parent to fulfil this duty — because the child is not to blame for the fact that the parents could not get along and decided to divorce.
Peter and Marina (names changed) had been married for 8 years and had a small child. Over the years, they had been through a great deal together. But sooner or later, every family goes through difficult periods. Peter could never have imagined that his own favorite hobby would become the trigger for a crisis in his relationship with Marina. Peter had always been passionate about football, spending all his free time on the pitch — until one day, during a match, he suffered a knee injury: a torn meniscus. Football is, by its nature, not a particularly safe sport: high speeds, sudden changes of direction, and hard tackles frequently cause injuries on the pitch, particularly to the legs, and the young man was no exception. He subsequently underwent knee surgery, followed by a long course of rehabilitation. For a long time, Peter was forced to stay home and recover. The entire burden, including the family's financial support, fell on his young wife's shoulders. At some point, cracks began to appear in their relationship. Marina started staying late at work more and more often, and whenever she came home she was sullen and hostile toward Peter. Month by month, the atmosphere in the family grew more strained and emotionally charged. Peter became intensely jealous and began to suspect her of infidelity — not without reason. So one day, during yet another argument, when he confronted her directly, Marina confessed to everything, confirming Peter's worst suspicions.
Saving the marriage was no longer possible, especially since neither of them wanted anything more to do with the other. Only their shared child still connected them. Marina asked Peter to move out of the apartment and filed for divorce. Wanting to get as far away from his problems as possible, the young man decided to return to Russia. Realizing, however, that this would solve nothing and that distance could not heal his wounds, he came back — above all because he wanted to see his child.
Before his knee injury, Peter had done heavy physical labor, so he now naturally needed to find some other line of work. That, however, was not so simple, because there was a catch: Peter was trained as an engineer, and, as is well known, an engineering degree earned outside Germany is not always recognized here. Finding work in his field had therefore been unrealistic for him for years, no matter how hard he tried. Heavy physical labor was now also out of the question because of his injury. After a lengthy search, the only thing he managed to find was a position as a warehouse clerk in warehouse logistics at one company. The salary for that position, accordingly, left a lot to be desired.
When the young man learned that his ex-wife had applied for child support, he had no objection in principle — but the amount the court ordered him to pay each month, given his salary, shocked him. Peter was required to pay 246 euros a month in child support, even though he himself earned only 1,090 euros net. He was not against paying support, but the most he could afford for the child's needs, given his salary and his own monthly expenses for basic necessities, was 150 euros. His ex-wife would not agree to that, so Peter came to us for legal help.
The lawyer listened carefully to Peter's situation and explained the typical procedure for handling such cases. Under case law, the standard applied to maintenance debtors is a demanding one. The federal state with jurisdiction over the case plays a significant role here: an analysis of case law shows that, depending on the German federal state, identical cases can be treated with very different degrees of strictness. Courts in states such as Brandenburg or Berlin, for example, often take the position that a lack of high earnings does not exempt someone from the duty to pay maintenance. Reducing the amount owed is also rarely on the table, since judges tend to assume there is always some additional job a person could take to fund the payments. At the same time, proving that finding side work is practically impossible for a given person is extremely difficult: one must submit the client's CV along with a large number of rejection letters from employers, plus other evidence showing the person's inability to find additional work. In some cases, judges even suggest switching to a better-paid job or relocating to another region if no work can be found locally.
In our case, however, there was enough evidence in our client's favor. The lawyer was therefore confident that a strong package of evidence made lowering the child support genuinely achievable. Some of that evidence still needed to be gathered, though, so the lawyer immediately asked the client to see a doctor and obtain medical certificates confirming that heavy physical exertion was medically contraindicated for him. While the client took care of that, the lawyer began drafting an official letter for submission to the court, drawing attention to the following points. First, he pointed to our client's very low income and to the fact that, despite having a formal education, it was impossible for him to find work in Germany in his field — chiefly because his profession is classified as one of the so-called regulated professions (German: reglementierter Beruf) in Germany.
Recognition or assessment of a professional qualification earned abroad is an important step in professional integration. But having one's diploma recognized does not mean one can immediately start looking for work in Germany in one's own field. The concept of a "regulated profession" covers roughly 60 professions in Germany, and for people who want to work in these fields, recognition of the diploma alone is not enough — the training completed abroad must match the requirements and parameters of the corresponding training in Germany, in terms of duration, range of subjects, practical placements, and so on. Problems frequently arise here, since every country naturally has its own educational standards. As a rule, foreigners with regulated professions must either complete supplementary training, have their qualification formally recognized, or retrain from scratch. Peter was therefore unable to find work in his field, and the only option left to him was earning a living through unskilled work. As proof that our client had made every effort to find work, the lawyer submitted a very large number of his job applications and the employers' rejection letters, demonstrating that he had done everything within his power to find better-paid work, but that the circumstances made this impossible.
The range of jobs open to him, given that he had no education recognized in Germany, was in any case rather short. Positions paying more than 1,300 euros typically involve heavy physical labor, which our client could no longer manage because of the accident and the injury it caused. As proof, the lawyer submitted the medical certificates our client had managed to obtain in time. What is more, Peter had already tried, after his injury, to take just such a job — at DHL, where he sometimes had to carry heavy parcels — but this only made his condition worse, a fact also confirmed by a doctor.
Our client also tried relocating to another German federal state where earnings are, statistically, higher — and it was there that he eventually found the warehouse job he now holds. Taking on additional work is likewise out of the question, since his health does not allow him to withstand heavy exertion.
During the hearing itself, the lawyer once again laid out all these circumstances in detail, and the judge, finding these arguments more than sufficient and reasonable, reduced the child support to the 150 euros we had been asking for. The case was thus decided in our client's favor. Before long, once Peter's knee had grown stronger, he resumed his search for a new job — because his child had always come first for him, and he wanted to be a good father and provide more support. We wish Peter every success in his search.
From Our Firm's Practice
Peter and Marina (names changed) had been married for 8 years and had a small child.
This example from our firm's practice shows how important it is to secure the support of an experienced lawyer in good time — someone who can point you toward the right path to your goal and protect your interests both before and during litigation.
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