Child's university out of the allowance if the cost was unforeseeable

The Court of Cassation (judgment 16578/206) clarified that extraordinary expenses incurred for the children must be assessed with reference to the time when the maintenance allowance is determined and not on the basis of events that, at the time, were not yet foreseeable.

The First Civil Section intervenes in a dispute between former spouses concerning the reimbursement of expenses incurred for their son's education. The case arose from a mother's request to obtain from the father reimbursement of a portion of the sums incurred over the years for her son's education, university and other needs. After alternating decisions on the merits, the Court of Cassation specified that extraordinary expenses are those that could not be foreseen or weighed at the time the periodic allowance was fixed and that, due to their significant size, affect the principle of proportionality between the parents' financial obligations. In the case at hand, university expenses, including tuition fees at a private university, off-site accommodation and travel costs, were considered extraneous to the ordinary allowance because they related to a time much later than the determination of the maintenance contribution. When the maintenance payment was set, in fact, the child was still a child and such disbursements were neither current nor reasonably quantifiable.

The Supreme Court upheld the father's appeal in a different respect. The judges found that the Court of Appeal, while recognising the need for equal participation of the parents in the extraordinary expenses, did not clearly explain how the final amount charged to the man had been calculated. The reasoning was deemed insufficient because it did not allow for an understanding of the logical path followed in quantifying the amount. In child maintenance disputes, the correct qualification of expenses is an essential element to ensure compliance with the principle of proportionality between parents.