The Provincial Court of Valencia has rejected that three heirs must return 12,410 euros corresponding to the retirement pension that Social Security continued to pay for 15 years after the death of their father. The heirs alleged that they were unaware of these improper payments and that the National Social Security Institute only detected the error after the death of their mother in 2017. For the court, although there was an improper payment, the action to claim it had already expired, as more than four years had passed since the last payment before the extrajudicial procedure began.
Apparently, the father collected the retirement pension in an account held jointly with his wife until he died on October 14, 2001. When this happened, Social Security was not informed of the death, so the entity continued to deposit the money uninterruptedly without alarms going off. This situation lasted for more than 15 years, specifically until March 31, 2017.
When the widow died and finally realized the error, the INSS verified that the original owner had died many years before. At that time, the entity recovered part of the money directly from the bank, exactly “the amount of 3,573.33 euros” and subsequently targeted the children of both spouses to recover the rest.
Social Security tried to claim the remaining hole from the heirs, demanding the return of 7,121.31 euros corresponding to the period between August 2004 and May 2013. By not obtaining the refund voluntarily, the organization filed a civil lawsuit. Their main argument was that the undue collection had not expired, demanding that the “prescription of 15 years be applied, as it was a personal action, collection of undue amounts, of article 1895 of the Civil Code, against the heirs, unrelated to Social Security.”
The heirs, for their part, stood up in court opposing the claim and alleging “the exception is the prescription of the action formulated by the passage of 4 years, according to the prescription of article 55 of the TRLGSS.”
Debts expire after four years
The Court of First Instance No. 12 of Valencia dismissed the INSS claim. The magistrate was forceful when applying article 55.3 of the General Social Security Law, recalling that the rule “clearly establishes the 4-year limitation period for the obligation to reimburse benefits unduly received.” The ruling emphasized that this period applies “regardless of the cause that gave rise to the improper perception, including cases of review of benefits due to an error attributable to the managing entity.”
The Social Security was not satisfied and filed an appeal before the Provincial Court of Valencia. In this second instance, the public entity insisted that it was not about reviewing a simple requirement that was missing from the benefit, but rather that, technically, “the erroneous payment in the account is not the payment of a Social Security benefit, since the pension as such had already been extinguished, legally, automatically, with the death of the deceased.” For this reason, they asked to apply the 15-year margin provided by the Civil Code.
Even so, the Provincial Court once again ruled in favor of the three brothers. The magistrates explained that the Social Security law is applicable to this case because the rule “does not impose any subjective limitation on this reimbursement action, since it can be directed against: ‘workers and other people’.”
The court concluded that the money was not claimed from the defendants as unrelated third parties, “but as heirs, that is, because they had taken over the rights and obligations of their father and mother.” Therefore, there was no excuse for the heirs to extend the period to 15 years and skip the 4-year time limit established by the administrative law. As that time had more than elapsed, justice declared the action prescribed, and freed the children from the debt.