The enforcement of maintenance obligations can be very difficult – the debtor avoids paying, gets rid of his property or conceals it, or suddenly loses his job. Facilitation for creditors is introduced by the Act on assistance to persons entitled to maintenance, which provides for a minimum of the option to withdraw the debtor’s driving license and report it to the economic information office. Before we achieve this effect, however, we must meet several conditions.
First of all, the creditor should go to the bailiff and start the execution. Only when this proves to be ineffective, the entitled person may submit to the „his” commune (commune of the entitled person’s residence) an application for taking action against the maintenance debtor. The application shall be accompanied by a certificate of ineffectiveness of enforcement.
Then the debtor’s municipality conducts the so-called maintenance interview – it determines the family, income and professional situation of the debtor, as well as his health and reasons for non-maintenance. What’s more, the debtor receives a property declaration, made under pain of criminal liability. The information collected in this way is forwarded to the bailiff, which may allow enforcement. If the debtor is in arrears with liabilities for a period longer than 6 months, the municipality notifies economic information bureaus (at least BIG, KRD, etc.).
If the maintenance interview shows that the debtor cannot meet his obligations due to unemployment, the authority will oblige him to register as unemployed or looking for work within a specified period (it may not be longer than 30 days). In addition, the municipality will inform the employment office of the need for professional activation of the maintenance debtor.
The above-mentioned activities (especially disclosure of assets in the asset declaration) should facilitate the collection of receivables. But what if the debtor:
o during the last 6 months at least in 1 month has not paid maintenance or has paid them in an amount lower than 50% of the obligation, and
- makes it impossible to carry out maintenance interviews or
- refused to make a property declaration,
- refused to register as an unemployed / jobseeker or
- without a justified reason, refuses to accept a proposal of suitable employment or other gainful work, socially useful work, intervention works, public works, works on the basis of public works or participation in training, internship or vocational preparation of adults?
In such a case, the commune authority will issue a decision to the debtor to recognize him as evading maintenance obligations. When this decision becomes final (cannot be appealed to the administrative body) the commune:
- will submit a request to the prosecutor’s office for prosecution for an offense of non-alimentation, and
- for submitting an application to the staroste to keep the debtor’s driving license.
As a consequence, the staroste will issue a decision to stop the driving license. The staroste may check whether a decision has been made to recognize the debtor as a person evading his obligations and whether it is final. However, there is no right to check whether this decision is correct, lawful and factually correct (as in the judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of October 14, 2016, reference number I OSK 287/15).