People who are supported by the job centre and receive citizen’s benefits can only accept gifts of money to a limited extent. A Berlin family on a pilgrimage to Mecca received 62,250 euros from a neighbour. Not legal, a Berlin court has now ruled.
Following the ruling by the Berlin-Brandenburg Regional Social Court, the family must now pay around 22,600 euros back to the job centre, as a court spokesperson announced on Thursday.
This relates to benefits that the couple and their child received from June 2018 to December 2019 – although they had received 62,250 euros as a gift from a neighbour during this time.
According to the court, the job centre initially had no idea about the gift of money. However, the payment was discovered as part of an investigation against the couple for fraud.
As it was significantly higher than the possible gift amount of 16,500 euros, the job centre demanded benefits back on the grounds that the family was not in need of assistance at the time.
The family appealed against this, arguing that the payment had been made for a specific purpose. They had received the money as thanks for looking after their neighbour, who was in need of care. She had wanted to enable them to fulfil their long-cherished wish of travelling to Mecca.
Neither the Berlin Social Court nor the appeal court accepted the family’s arguments. Among other things, the judges criticised the fact that there was no evidence of the high costs of the pilgrimage and that the claimants wanted all payments to be made in cash. It is contrary to life experience to pay for a flight costing more than 5,000 euros in cash, they said.
The judgement is not legally binding.
Pilger-Reise nach Mekka – Jobcenter holt sich Geld zurück! (bz-berlin.de)