Today we talk about a ruling that may be of interest to those who, having children and a partner, live with the latter and are considering accessing childcare assistance for single-parent families. According to a recent ruling issued by the first section of the Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG), a woman who lives with her partner and her daughter cannot be considered a single-parent family, so she would not be entitled to such aid.
In this chaos, the woman claimed to have made a mistake in including the father as a member of the family unit in her daughter’s nursery school enrollment and demanded the Xunta to return the money she considers she overpaid, since single-parent families have discounts.
The ruling, however, denied her this possibility.
Specifically, she asked the Consorcio Galego de Servizos de Igualdade e Benestar to pay her 1,768 euros, corresponding to the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 school years. If you need help from a family lawyer for any matter related to custody, support, divorce, separation, pensions… contact our team of lawyers: we will be happy to assist you.
Childcare assistance for single-parent families: irrelevance of spousal relationship
The ruling states that, “whether there is a marital relationship or not, if both parents live together and contribute financially to the support of their minor daughter, the amount of income from both parents must be computed, unlike what happens in the case of a single-parent family, since in the latter case the other parent does not contribute financially to the support of the child”.
In addition, the Court assures that this criterion “is better suited to the social reality of the present time, in which a large number of parents decide not to marry, despite the fact that they contribute with their income to all the expenses generated by the maintenance of their common son or daughter”.
In this sense, the judges emphasize that there is “no logical reason to privilege parents who have not married over those who have”.
In its development, the Chamber comments that the documentation in the case file shows that the father lives with the mother and daughter and contributes to the support of the child’s expenses, “so that it makes no sense that, for the purposes of the price to be paid for the child’s educational care, the father’s income should not be taken into account, but only the mother’s”. In addition, the court warns that the purpose of the regulation is to “address the real situation of the family unit and help those who need it most”. The TSXG holds that the appellant’s “interpretation” would “give rise to a fraudulent interpretation of the law. because it could benefit family units with higher incomes, allowing the concealment of the income of one of the parents, despite the fact that he or she contributes to the support of the son or daughter”.
In addition, the TSXG indicates that the plaintiff herself “must have understood it this way initially, since she included the father as a member of the family unit and ruled out that her case was that of a single-parent family”. If you need help from a family lawyer for any matter related to custody, support, divorce, separation, pensions… contact our team of lawyers: we will be happy to assist you.
