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The new maintenance laws – using chances and recognizing risks with the help of a lawyer!

Are you obliged to pay someone else maintenance after a divorce? Or are you receiving maintenance due to a divorce? Then maybe changes to the amount of your maintenance payments are the result.

• Are you the party obliged to pay maintenance and would like to know whether the changes to the legal situation mean you can request a change to existing maintenance order?
• Are you entitled to maintenance and would you like to learn when a reduction in maintenance is unreasonable?
• Are you the mother of an illegitimate child and would like more information about what claim to maintenance you are entitled to?
• Would you like to learn what changes result from the new Düsseldorf table?

Let Valeska Sommer give you legal advice

Important: Even closed cases can be assessed according to the new laws and be reopened as long as essential changes of the obligation to pay maintenance are unacceptable for the other party!

Our offer until the 30th June 2008:

For an all-inclusive fee of € 50.00, we will check what effects the new legal situation has on your case. You will receive an initial assessment and a recommendation on further action.

The reason behind the new legal situation in Germany – maintenance law reform

On 1st January 2008, the new maintenance amending law came into effect. The legislature set its sights on promoting a child’s well-being and post-marital responsibilities and simplify the maintenance laws. The laws have adapted to the changes in social relations and moral concepts of the past centuries: there are fewer and fewer marriages and of those that are, more and more of them are divorced. (You can find further information about this on the website of the Statistischen Bundesamt). In large cities like Frankfurt am Main, roughly every second marriage ends in a divorce. Thus the number of second families, patchwork families, people just living together and single parents is increasing.

The old principles of maintenance were thus regarded as outdated and often unreasonable. The new law should accommodate for this by promoting a child’s well-being, emphasizing the principle of self-reliance of the spouses after divorce and simplifying the maintenance laws as a whole.

Valeska Sommer can check whether and how the new legal situation affects you.

Details for those who think further – what it is about

In the future, the income available for maintenance purposes will be distributed according to the principle of order of priority in rank order. The amount available will first be distributed among rank one before it is then distributed to rank two, and then three, etc. It is new that minor unmarried and so-called privileged children are assigned to rank one in the future and no longer have to share with divorced spouses. The divorced spouse has now slid down to rank two and, if he does not have a child or marriage lasted long, he can even slide into rank three. Mothers of an illegitimate child, who were assigned to rank three under the old law, can now belong to rang two, if they look after the child. This can lead to a mother of an illegitimate child being able to demand maintenance, whereby the divorced spouse is not entitled to maintenance.

Child maintenance according to the Düsseldorf table will depend on the tax emption in the future. A minimum amount of maintenance amounting to twice the tax exemption will be determined. This automatically changes when the tax exemption changes. This minimum amount of maintenance is the basis for the determination of the amount of maintenance of the new Düsseldorf table. Apart from that, the fact remains that the income of the person obliged to pay maintenance and the age of the child decide the amount of maintenance.

The divorced spouse has to provide for his upkeep to a larger extent in the future. A person entitled to maintenance for looking after a child is only safeguarded for the first three years after the birth of the child; so-called basic maintenance. After these three years, maintenance can be prolonged, yet this must correspond with justness, whereby the child’s interests and the possibilities of childcare are to be taken into consideration. The marital living conditions also play a role.

Sounds complicated? We will solve the puzzle for you!