A CaixaBank early retiree will not have to return the 25,810.89 euros that the bank continued to pay him for two years to cover his agreement with Social Security when he was already retired. The Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León understands that the bank claimed the money late, since it had a year to do so and did not send a burofax until June 2023, almost two years after the last payment.
This man, born in 1958, worked at Banca Cívica, which later became CaixaBank, and in 2012 he left the entity with a pre-retirement within the ERE (a collective dismissal) that the entity agreed with the unions for up to 1,500 employees, according to the ruling (available in the Judiciary and against which an appeal can be made to the Supreme Court). In the agreement, CaixaBank agreed to pay him the cost of the special agreement with Social Security every month until he turned 63 (this agreement allows him to continue contributing to his pension even if he no longer works).
The problem is that in October 2019 he accessed the early retirementbefore reaching that age, and the bank continued paying the agreement until September 2021. In total there were 25,810.89 euros, all collected when he was already retired, and the bank, upon realizing it, wanted to recover them, since the special agreement ends when the person begins to collect the retirement pension (as regulated by the article 10 of Order TAS/2865/2003).
CaixaBank sent him a burofax in June 2023 to return the money and, when they did not reach an agreement, they went to court. The Court of Instance of Burgos rejected the claim in February 2026 without even considering whether it had to be returned, because it understood that the deadline to claim it had already passed.
In this ruling the key is in that period, since a debt expires when the time established by law to claim it passes, and from then on it can no longer be demanded. CaixaBank defended that it was five years old, because it saw it as a voluntary improvement of Social Security (what a company pays on its own to improve worker protection). The Burgos judge applied, however, the year established by article 59 of the Workers’ Statute for debts arising from an employment contract.
The payment was part of the exit agreed in the ERE
The Superior Court of Justice agrees with the retiree with the same argument that it already used in another case of the same ERE. As stated in that ruling, these amounts “are part of the obligation assumed in the collective agreement to terminate Banca Cívica’s labor relations.” That is, the money was part of what he charged for leaving, and the TSJ of Aragón already understood it this way in 2019.
Thus, the term “cannot be the specific period of five years intended for a non-existent voluntary improvement, but rather the general period of one year,” added that ruling, whose criterion the Chamber now follows again. As the payments ended in September 2021 and the bank did not claim until June 2023, the debt had already prescribed. In this way, the retiree keeps the 25,810.89 euros and CaixaBank will also have to pay 650 euros, VAT included, to the lawyer who defended him.
Social Security will increase retirement pensions by 57 euros per month on average in 2027 if the November CPI reaches 4.5%, but only 55 if it drops to 4.3%
Social Security increases the minimum pension for retirees who now have their spouse in charge, more than 320 euros per month in 2026 and more than 400 in 2027 according to the law, whenever they request it.
Another early retiree from the same Banca Cívica ERE, who retired at age 61, did have to return 25,985.52 euros to CaixaBank, since the TSJ of Navarra considered that this payment was an improvement of Social Security and that the bank had five years to claim it.