Court proceedings can be very costly, especially if we are dealing with a periodic claim – e.g. monthly. On the other hand, Polish law, and in particular the Constitution, protects children’s rights and provides support to the family (Articles 71 and 72 of the Constitution). Consequently, in order to ensure a real possibility of pursuing maintenance claims even in the case of the poorest families, the legislator introduced a number of financial facilitations.
First of all, Art. 96 sec. 1 point 2 of the Act on court costs in civil cases states that the party claiming maintenance claims and the defendant in a case for reduction of maintenance are not obliged to cover court costs. This applies to the costs of the entire proceeding – both in the first instance (e.g. a claim fee, application for justification or an application for a copy of the judgment) and in the second instance (e.g. appeal fee, complaints). This also applies to any expenditure listed in Art. 5 of the Act – min. Experts’ fees, advertising costs or costs of taking other evidence.
The person entitled to claim maintenance will also not pay the stamp duty on the power of attorney. This exemption results from Art. 2 clause 1 point 1 lit. and the act on stamp duty.
Moreover, the ordinance of the Minister of Justice on fees for attorneys’ services (§4 section 1 point 9) sets the minimum rates in matters relating to maintenance at PLN 120. However, this does not apply to a situation where the obligation to reimburse costs is borne by the person liable for maintenance. In such a situation, attorney fees are determined on general principles – based on the value of the subject matter. The twin regulation is included in the regulation on fees for legal advisers’ activities. In practice, this means that if the maintenance claimant loses the case, the costs of representation, which he will have to reimburse the other party (if, of course, he used the help of an attorney or counselor and applied for reimbursement) will be very low. However, if the person liable to pay maintenance loses the case, he will have to reimburse the entitled person for much higher costs of representation.
To sum up, the maintenance proceedings have been structured in such a way that the person requesting the payment of maintenance and its increase or the person defendant for the reduction of maintenance (including the determination of non-existence of the maintenance obligation) does not have to bear the costs of the procedure. It certainly has a positive effect on the possibility of actual enforcement of maintenance claims by entitled persons.