Healthcare Cost Allowance Legal Advice - Legal Aid Clinic

Questioner

My son is now 22, and recently noticed through a conversation with fellow students that he was entitled to health care allowance. He may have received a message about this around his 18th birthday, but at that time my ex and I were getting divorced and this letter was never seen. It is not clear whether my ex threw it away or something. My eldest son would continue to live with me and such an act of revenge could be plausible. The result is that we have applied for and received this allowance for him since the beginning of 2013. However, it has been rejected for the previous years and an objection does not seem to help. Unfortunately I did receive this allowance for myself but in 2009 I started earning a bit more and I didn't understand that I was going over this limit. I am now in the process of paying back this wrongly received allowance. The annoying thing now is that my son was actually entitled to this allowance, and in our household this money was (sort of) rightly received, but in the wrong name. Why is this being corrected retroactively for me, but not for my son. In the meantime I am unemployed and due to the large debts from the sale of the previous house (due to the departure of my ex) I am financially completely broke. What can I do! Yours sincerely, *

Lawyer

I assume that in this case you acted as an attorney for your adult son. From his eighteenth birthday, he indeed had an independent right to the care allowance. From that moment on, he was no longer covered by your health insurance. It is customary for the tax authorities, if they grant the care allowance, to deposit it into the account of the applicant himself (i.e. your son). Your son can still try to apply for the healthcare allowance for the past years via a request to the tax authorities. I suspect that this will be rejected. He can then file an objection. After that, he will know on the basis of which regulation the tax authorities will reject his request. After that, an appeal to the administrative court is possible. Legally, your son cannot blame you. After all, as an adult, he is responsible for his own affairs. If he fails to do so, so be it. Recourse against his father is not possible in this case.