People who charge a widow’s pension will lose their right to the benefit if they contract a new marriage or constitute a new de facto couple and, not to communicate it to the Administration, will be forced to return everything improperly charged since that date. This is established in article 223 of the General Social Security Law, which defines these situations as a cause of extinction of law.
This is so, since the Widow’s pension It is a benefit that is within those known as for “death and survival” similar to that of orphanhood, whose purpose is to compensate for the loss of income suffered by a person for the death of their spouse or partner. When formalizing a new analogous legal link (marriage or de facto partner), the law considers that this situation of economic dependence derived from the previous link disappears.
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Unlike work income, which are compatible with the pension, the creation of a new family unit of this type directly affects the foundation of law.
Compared to other situations that only temporarily suspend a pension, get married or become a de facto partner causes extinction, that is, you no longer have the right to continue charging it. What does it mean or how does it affect us? Well, since the day of the new link or registration, any charged monthly payment becomes an improperly perceived benefit. The law does not provide for a “notice” mechanism for this situation, since it is the obligation of the beneficiary pensioner to communicate from this change of civil status.
What happens if I charge the widowhood pension, I march and I do not communicate it
In the event that a widow’s pension beneficiary contracts marriage or becomes a de facto partner and does not communicate it, Social Security will act as soon as it detects the new situation (normally through the crossing of data with the Civil Registry). The pension will not be denied (because it was already granted), but a procedure will begin to declare its extinction and claim the debt.
This process is regulated in article 55 of the General Social Security Law, in which first, Social Security issues a resolution that declares the right to pension extinguished from the exact date of the marriage or the constitution of the de facto couple. Then, the total amount of the monthly payments charged from that date of extinction is calculated and the debt claim is formally notified to the beneficiary. Now, the rule says that the obligation to return these amounts prescribes at four years since the date of each collection.
In other words, that the lack of communication by the beneficiary does not annul the extinction of law, but generates a social security debt that is legally obliged to settle.
An example about when the pension must be returned
For example, this situation could be a widow who of 68 who charges a pension of 850 euros per month and married in January 2024. Either due to ignorance or forgotten, she does not communicate that change to social security, so she continues to receive her pension normally.
A year and a half later, Social Security performs a check and detects that it is charging the pension improperly. In this case, it will first notify that your right to widow’s pension was extinguished on the same day of its wedding in January 2024 and then will claim the amounts charged unduly, which making a calculation at 18 months, the amount would be 15,300 euros.
As a result, the pensioner not only stops charging the pension immediately, but now faces a debt of more than 15,000 euros. If I had communicated the marriage at the time, I would simply have stopped charging the pension since that date, without generating any debt.