The Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country has confirmed that a man, beneficiary of the minimum vital income will not have to return 20,627.70 euros claimed by Lanbide, despite the fact that the regional body alleged an improper collection. The Basque Employment Service knew from the beginning that in the family unit there was a brother -in -law of the applicant, but still processed and maintained the payment of the benefit for more than a year before demanding the full return of the perceived.
It all begins in 2021, when the man requested the income guarantee or RGI income (known as the minimum social insertion or salary income of the Autonomous Community) with his wife and three children. The aid was approved and, a year later, Lanbide ex officio the minimum vital income, prior authorization by SMS (this being key in this sentence). In February 2022, the agency approved the new benefit and began to enter the account.
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Months later, in June 2023, the beneficiary communicated to Lanbide that his wife’s brother (his brother -in -law) also resided at his home (his brother -in -law), registered there since February 2022. According to the sentence, the plaintiff presented the passport and recorded in the file of the RGI of the registration of the new member of the Coexistence Unit.
Despite having that information in his own records, Lanbide did not immediately review the file. It was in September 2023 (more than a year) when the Department of Benefits decided to suspend the minimum vital income and declared the charges “undue” from June 2022 to August 2023, claiming 20,627.70 euros.
The affected person resorted to the decision, claiming that he had acted “in good faith, without hiding at any time the presence of his brother -in -law in the house” and that, in reality, it was Lanbide himself who knew the facts and still approved the change from the RGI to the IMV. Even so, the administration insisted on the reimbursement, protecting itself in Law 19/2021 (that can be consulted in this boe) of the minimum vital income, which forces to communicate any variation in the coexistence unit and foresee the return of the amounts collected unduly.
The administration took more than a year to review the minimum vital income
The case reached the Social Court of Eibar, who gave the reason to the beneficiary and annulled the claim of Lanbide. The agency appealed in supplication, defending that the plaintiff had not fulfilled his obligation to inform correctly and that, when living with his brother -in -law, the family unit no longer met the requirements to collect the minimum vital income.
In this Chamber, the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country explained that “the registration of the brother -in -law consisted of the RGI file and, even so, Lanbide managed and approved the IMV”, so he could not now demand the return of the perceived amounts.
The magistrates also said that the beneficiary did not act with bad faith or conceal information, on the contrary, it was the administration itself that knew the data and still approved the help. In this regard, the Court said that “the errors attributable only to the authorities must not, in principle, remedy at the expense of the affected person”, applying the doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights in the Cakarevic Ces. Croatia (2018), which has already been mentioned in other related sentences.
Thus, the TSJ considered that forcing him to return more than 20,000 euros would be a disproportionate burden, since the minimum vital income is a benefit to meet the basic subsistence needs. Therefore, and since the error was Lanbide, the affection will not have to reintegrate the money charged with the minimum vital income.