Spanish court orders man to pay 204,625 euros compensation to ex-wife for 'depriving her of a career'

A court in the Axarquía town of Vélez-Málaga has ruled in favour of a woman who is to be compensated by her ex-husband to the tune of 204,625 euros for the housework and caring for the family she did during the marriage, while a separation of property regime was in force.

The ruling came as part of a divorce settlement which includes compensation for domestic work, since the woman, during the time of the marriage and while under a regime of separation of property, carried out "exclusively" all the household chores and care of the couple’s two daughters, according to the court.

The court report stated that the woman "was deprived of any possible career path due to her exclusive dedication to the home and family". The man, "throughout the years of the marriage, accumulated and exponentially increased his private assets", without this resulting in an increase in her assets”.

According to sources consulted by Europa Press, the amount of compensation requested was established according to the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) from when they married in June 1995, until 2020 when the separation took place.

Now, the ruling, which is not final and can be appealed, considers that the 48-year-old woman dedicated her time to looking after the home and the two daughters, "with all that this entails, contributing occasionally to the family business" by doing occasional cleaning work. The judge explained that although the husband's lawyer argued that the man transferred part of his shares in a company, "there is no evidence whatsoever that this transfer was made to compensate her in the event of their break-up and in order to exclude the application in her case of what is contained in article 1.438 of the Civil Code".

Accoring to the lawyer who handled the case, Marta Fuentes, from the Gentius Abogados office in Torre del Mar, the compensation is considered enough to cover the ex-wife’s expenses for two years while she prepares herself for the job market. She has started several training courses, although she allegedly currently has health problems.

The lawyer indicated in a statement that this ruling "is above all the recognition of the work of all those women who are in the shadows and who, without doubt, constitute a fundamental personal, marital and family support for years and years of marriage so that the ex-husband, as well as being able to have a family, can develop a professional career and an increase in assets which, at the time of the break-up, they cannot have".

The lawyer pointed out that many of these women are left "in precarious situations and with few possibilities of accessing the labour market given their exclusive dedication to the family and, for the most part, to their husbands' businesses".

Gentius Abogados hopes "that if this ruling is appealed, it will be ratified in its entirety by the Malaga’s provincial court, so that it will add to the already existing related case law until it is fully consolidated and normalised".