HIBAPRESS
The Spanish judiciary in the Catalonia region recently issued a final ruling obliging a 75-year-old woman to return more than 32,000 euros and withdraw her non-contributory pension, after it was proven that she had exceeded the legal income ceiling and resided outside of Spain for periods exceeding the permitted duration.
The newspaper La Razon reported that the woman in question had been benefiting from a monthly pension exceeding 600 euros since 2013, before an administrative review revealed irregularities in her financial situation, especially after recording high income for her daughter who lives with her, which led to the family's resources exceeding the legal limit. The same source added that the total family income reached about 73,000 euros during 2021, which is more than double the ceiling set for a family of three, which prompted the competent authorities to cancel the pension retroactively, and demand the recovery of the amounts spent since June 2018, which amounted to about 32,857 euros. The newspaper pointed out that the woman in question tried to defend herself by saying that the calculation of income should have included eight people, but the court rejected this argument due to the absence of any evidence to prove it, and adopted a calculation that concerned only three people, confirming that the legal limit was clearly exceeded. The source also clarified that the ruling also addressed the periods of residence of the person concerned outside of Spain, where the legal period of 90 days per year was exceeded, as she spent long periods outside the country, including about 260 days during 2020. In this context, the person concerned justified her stay in Morocco by the circumstances of the "COVID-19" pandemic and the closure of borders, but the court considered that this justification was insufficient, confirming that legal residents could have returned to Spain despite the health restrictions. La Razon concluded that the court also rejected the statute of limitations for the review of the older years, considering that the judicial procedures initiated by the person concerned herself stopped the running of the deadlines, which makes her obligated to return the full amount, in addition to losing her right to benefit from the pension.
