New maintenance law - divided judges
Women like Antje D. were worried about the year 2008. Their ex-husband wanted to cut back their living expenses and felt right about the change in the law. She had been married for 25 years, raised four children and renounced her career as a chemist. Two years ago, the marriage was facing a divorce, maintenance claims for her as well. Thus, Antje D. belongs to the so-called old cases, so to the women who were divorced before the reform of January 1, 2008.
Gretel Diehl, a family judge at the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, sees these housewives and mothers as losers of the new maintenance law: "It will take at least another two years until the jurisdiction has clarified whether and for how long such women will continue receiving support." The problem is that decisions are currently highly fragmented. Antje D. might get support from a judge in southern Germany for the rest of her life, but would not see a cent in northern Germany.
With marriages being divorced, the situation is clearer. Everyone should take care of themselves as soon as possible after the divorce - this applies to everyone who is still young and only married for a short time. A 60-year-old housewife, however, the courts will hardly expect to look after the divorce nor a job. She will continue to receive support from her ex-husband.
It will be difficult, however, if the career with mothers after the baby break has made a kink. This salary gap must compensate them financially the ex-husband. But who can say exactly how the career advancement would have gone? Ingeborg Rakete-Dombek, specialist lawyer for family law, notary and chairwoman of the Association for Family Law in the German Bar Association: "Women claim that they are now head of department with 7000 Euro gross salary and their men think that they never made this career enormous conflict potential. "
In the case of parents of young children, the new law succinctly states that women only receive maintenance until the youngest child is three years old. The outcry at the beginning of the year was great, because conversely that would have meant: With the third birthday of the child flows for the ex-wife no more money.
The Federal Court did not see this and weakened the law in mid-2008. An unmarried mother had complained that she could not be expected to work full-time with a kindergartner - even if she was cared for all day. The court agreed: accepting a full-time job and raising a child next to it was too much. Now the ex-husband must continue to pay for the mother of his child. It is not decisive whether one was married or not: the highest court decision applies to both. But still the question remains, when parents need to work again.
"At the moment, the courts are increasingly orienting themselves again on a kind of age-phase model," says Judge Diehl. Meaning: Before the tenth year of a child's single parent have yet to accept a full-time position. However, one change has brought about the reform: since 2008, more marriage contracts have been concluded, at the request of women. "In the past, the men were pushing for a contract to protect their assets in a divorce, and now there are more and more women demanding a clear ruling, such as compensating for their career break from a child break in divorce," she says Ingeborg Rocket Dombek. Many agree that in the case of a divorce, the wife will not have to work again until the child is older, or that she will receive a severance pay.
However, the lawyers agree on who benefits from the reform: the second families. They are clearly the winners of the change in the law - so the innovation has achieved one of the intended goals. Because if the ex-wife gets less maintenance, more money for the children, even in a new family. And there is one more winner - the law firms: the need for advice was seldom higher than in the period after the maintenance reform.
