Establishing dependency and paternity: access to payments and pension

What is happening

People live as one family, but the documents do not show it. The marriage was never registered, the child's birth certificate names no father, an elderly mother lived on her son's money without any paperwork. While the serviceman was alive, none of this mattered. After his death or a serious injury, those documents decide who receives the payments and the pension.

Refusals are usually formal: no father on the birth certificate, so the child is neither heir nor recipient; no certificate of dependency, so there was no dependency. A court looks at the actual circumstances, not only at the stamps.

These cases call for careful work with evidence: transfers, joint documents, witness testimony, medical and housing records. We assemble it into a picture the court can follow.

What the law says

• Dependency means that the serviceman's support was a permanent and principal source of a person's means. The law does not require that he maintained them entirely.
• Family members unable to work fall within the group entitled to payments and to a survivor's pension, and the fact of dependency may be established by a court.
• Paternity can be established after the father's death. If he acknowledged the child, the court establishes the fact of acknowledgement; if he did not, paternity itself is established.
• In paternity cases the court may order genetic testing, including with the participation of the father's relatives.
• The court's decision is the basis for entering the father's details in the birth certificate and then for claiming payments and pension and joining the succession.
• No deadline applies to establishing dependency under Chapter 28 of the Code of Civil Procedure, but the later the application, the harder it is to gather evidence.

What we do

• We assess which fact needs to be established: dependency, paternity, or acknowledgement of paternity.
• We gather evidence of the actual relationship: transfers, receipts, contracts, correspondence, joint photographs and documents.
• We prepare the application to court and identify the interested parties and the proper court.
• We apply for witnesses to be heard and, where needed, for genetic testing.
• We conduct the hearings and obtain a decision worded so that authorities and the notary can act on it.
• After the decision we help enter the father's details, claim the pension and join the succession.

What we need from you

• The applicant's passport and the child's birth certificate in a paternity case.
• The serviceman's documents: military ID, contract, a certificate from the unit, and the death certificate if one has been issued.
• Proof of financial support: bank statements, transfer receipts, till receipts.
• Documents showing that you lived together: registration, tenancy agreement, certificates.
• Information about the applicant's income over the disputed period: certificates, pension documents.
• Contact details of people who can confirm the circumstances as witnesses.