Decision No. 50,003/2024 of the Single-Member Court of First Instance of Athens (special procedure – family disputes) was published. The decision dismissed a lawsuit filed against our client by his former spouse. The plaintiff sought recognition that she contributed to increasing our client’s assets (which she estimated at €1,082,000) during their marriage by 60%, requesting €649,200. Alternatively, she relied on the legal presumption that a spouse contributes one-third to the asset increase of the other spouse (i.e., €360,666.66), a rebuttable presumption that places the burden on the defendant to demonstrate no or lesser contribution.
Specifically, under Article 1400 of the Greek Civil Code, if a marriage is dissolved or annulled and the assets of one spouse have increased since the marriage, the other spouse may demand the return of the portion of the increase derived from their contribution. The law presumes this contribution to be one-third of the increase, unless a greater, lesser, or no contribution is proven.
The Court, regarding the main claim of a 60% actual contribution, accepted our argument for vagueness with the following rationale: “[…] the lawsuit is dismissed as vague because, although the plaintiff claims to have contributed to the defendant’s asset increase by providing funds from her work in the amount of …, by undertaking household duties valued at …, and by caring for the children, also valued at … monthly, she does not specify the amount she was required to contribute towards family needs according to her ability and based on family needs also assessed in monetary terms. Contributions toward family needs count only to the extent that they exceed the owed contribution, thus qualifying as an increase in the other spouse’s assets and giving grounds for return, but not in their entirety. Without such details, it cannot be determined if the services offered indeed exceed, and by what measure, the required level of contribution based on their specific circumstances.”
Regarding the alternative basis of the claim, relying on the presumed one-third contribution of the spouse to the other spouse’s assets, the Court ruled that due to this presumption, it is not required to precisely evaluate the plaintiff’s services. However, the Court dismissed this claim as substantively unfounded following our argument, which demonstrated that our client’s initial assets—those he held prior to the marriage—exceeded the value the plaintiff indicated in her filing. Therefore, it was determined that, in this case, there was no asset increase during the marriage.
