Being forced to Maintenance Payments to alcoholic father in Poland?

I live and work in England having moved from Poland to escape an abusive alcoholic father. I have no contact with him. My parents divorced 8 years ago. My father is being moved into an institution as he is unable to take care of himself. Can I be forced to pay maintenance towards his living costs?

If the court rules so, yes. He maintained you (in theory) when you were a child, so it's now your turn to maintain him.

Could he disown his father?

Well, a Polish court can, in theory, certainly order you to pay; however, I'm less than sure that they could actually enforce that payment if you're living and working in the UK and have no assets in Poland for a bailiff to seize.


In theory yes but in practice that is hard to do and takes a long time even what you'd think would be open-and-shut cases.

I have no assets in Poland - but worried in theory they could come after my uk assets. Also there are numerous outstanding court demands from my childhood for payments he was due my mother that were never paid.

I somehow doubt that a UK court would approve an enforcement order for a debt which cannot exist under UK law.


That's interesting. I wonder if you could sign something with your mother for you to settle those debts in his behalf as payment for your obligations towards him. Alternatively perhaps your mother could start proceedings to have those debts enforced and you to then arrange something with the bailiff (although I think that those debts may well have expired by now).

European Payment Order. Effective throughout Europe. UK and Norway, I believe, had certain parts of the agreement set aside. For people subjected to an EPO in the UK have it applied under UK Law. This means they can't take more than you can afford.

Yes, I have heard of those. My point would be that it is applied under UK law and under UK law that debt simply does not exist.

The point of it is to make it possible to enforce in another country. In the UK it would become enforceable but they can't take what you haven't got and you are not getting sent to prison because you can't pay. To enforce it I believe they have to go through the County Court system and then bailiffs can be used to enforce. I would guess all you have to do is offer what you can afford to the court and nothing will happen.

Aren't EPOs only for uncontested debts? Sounds very much like this is a contested matter.

And even if it wasn't, a British court would need to rule that Polish law over-rides British law: in the UK this debt simply does not arise.

No. If you obtain a judgement in a court in one nation state, an EPO can be used to recover the debt from the debtor living in another nation state. If you don't contest the debt in the state where the claim was made its your problem as long as papers were served correctly. In Poland this means just posting them to a former address.


The point is that the court of another state does not have to review the law of the state that issued the EPO. If they could then it would open up shopping for the best jurisdiction.

The UK opted out on one part of the article which determines the law on how the debt is collected. Once an EPO is issued the debt is final and cannot be challenged in a UK court.

Had to do a bit of research on this just in case the outcome was nasty.

europa.eu thinks otherwise: "To start the procedure, Form A must be filled in, giving all the details of the parties and the nature and amount of the claim. The court will examine the application, and if the form is correctly filled in, the court should issue the European Payment Order within 30 days.

The European Payment Order must then be served on the defendant by the court. S/he can either pay the amount of the claim, or contest it. S/he has 30 days to lodge any statement of opposition to the European Payment Order. If this happens, the case must be transferred to the normal civil law courts to be dealt with under national law."

e-justice.europa.eu/content_european_payment_order-41-en.do


But without this people can be forced to pay money which they simply do not owe under their law. So we'd have adverts on TV along the lines of 'Son-in-law just won the lottery but won't give you a bean? Move to Poland and we'll sue the bastard for parental support on your behalf'.


But I'd be guessing that the case you investigated was either alimony or child support, both of which would apply under UK law.

I would say that no way will they be able to enforce it in the uk but you might run into problems when you travel as poland could stick your name on the wanted list if you living in uk have uk job uk home etc you could go to citizens advice and ask them about finiancial disassociation as then in the eyes of the uk you have no finaincial obligation to the person or shared ventures then poland would have no chance of obtaining the money as you have official documentation stated you have no finiancial link to the person

Hi help23, my friend is in the same position.
could you say what you did?
Can you give advice please?