The Provincial Court of Pontevedra has partially ruled in favor of a 57-year-old woman who, after 32 years of marriage, claimed a compensatory pension and financial compensation for having dedicated herself to the home throughout their life together. The court maintains the pension of 600 euros per month, but eliminates the nine-year limit that the court had set. In exchange, it reduces the compensation for work for the house from 192,000 to 80,000 euros.
According to the ruling SAP PO 454, the marriage lasted 32 years and the woman barely returned to work until the separation, when she found employment in the hospitality industry. The Court considers it proven that throughout that time his main dedication was to the home and that this decision, assumed in practice within the marriage, prevented him from consolidating his own working life and also from contributing normally to collect the contributory retirement pension in the future. Meanwhile, the husband supported the family financially and maintained a clearly superior financial position.
In the first instance, a compensatory pension of 600 euros for nine years and compensation of 192,000 euros was recognized under article 1438 of the Civil Code. The husband appealed to try to eliminate both measures or, at least, reduce the pension to six months. The woman appealed only to request that the pension not have an end date.
The Court finds it unrealistic to think that they will be able to rebuild their working life
The key to this ruling is in the compensatory pension, regulated in article 97 of the Civil Code. The Court recalls, based on the doctrine of the Supreme Court, that this pension does not serve to equalize assets or to guarantee the same standard of living as before, but rather to correct the economic imbalance caused by divorce when this damage arises precisely from marriage.
In this case, the court understands that this imbalance clearly exists. The ruling says that dedication to the home “has prevented the plaintiff from not only consolidating a work situation and experience,” but also from generating sufficient contributions for a future pension. And he adds a key fact, that at 57 years old and after 32 years out of the labor market, only “not well-paid jobs in the hospitality field” appear as probable.
That is why she rejects both the husband’s request to reduce the pension to six months and the nine-year limit set by the court. The Court points out that to set an expiration date on such a pension, a serious and prudent judgment is required regarding the real possibility of overcoming this imbalance, not a simple intuition. And he warns that thinking otherwise would be “futurism or divination.” On this basis, the pension becomes indefinite, although it could be modified or extinguished if circumstances substantially change, as provided for in articles 100 and 101 of the Civil Code.
Compensation for working at home remains the same, but drops to 80,000 euros
The other important part of the case revolves around article 1438 of the Civil Code, which allows compensation to be recognized when, in a marriage with separation of assets, one of the spouses contributes to the family responsibilities with their work at home. The Court considers it proven that here there was an “exclusive and exclusive” dedication of the wife to the house, and also highlights that for years she also took care of two of the husband’s grandchildren who lived with them. She even includes a phrase attributed to her husband that sums up that dynamic well, when she admitted that she never worked because “being with him she doesn’t need anything.”
Even so, the court lowers the amount. It does not deny the right, but it understands that granting at the same time a lifetime pension and maintaining the 192,000 euros set in the first instance could mean double compensation for the same events. Therefore, taking into account that there were no common children, that the husband assumed all the financial expenses of the house and that the pension already corrects part of this imbalance, the final compensation is set at 80,000 euros.