Immediate payment of child maintenance
At the end of February, the Council of Ministers adopted a draft reform of family law. One of the changes is the introduction of child maintenance summary proceedings in the civil procedure. The new procedure aims to significantly speed up the settlement of cases for the award of child maintenance, which can last for months.
The child maintenance summary proceedings will be maximally simplified, i.e. .:
- the petition will be filed on the ready-made online form,
- only the certified copy of the child’s birth certificate will have to be attached to the form; attaching any other evidence (e.g. income or maintenance costs) will not be required.
In these proceedings, the amount of child maintenance will be determined on the basis of the conversion amount announced annually (which takes into account, among others, fertility rate, the amount of the minimum remuneration etc.) and the number of children in the family. As of today, the amount of child maintenance payment awarded in the child maintenance summary proceedings would be about PLN 500 for one child and about PLN 1,200.00 for three children. The obligation to pay child maintenance is to expire when the eligible child reaches the age of 25.
Child maintenance summary proceedings are to be an alternative to the procedure which is currently functioning, so the choice which procedure to initiate will be up to the person eligible for child maintenance. After being awarded child maintenance in child maintenance summary proceedings, there will be no obstacles to claim, at a later time, a higher amount of child maintenance depending on the child’s needs and the parent’s financial abilities, based on the regulations currently in force.