The Supreme Court, by its decision of April 3, 1970, ref. no. III CRN 90/70 settled on how to settle expenses made from the personal property of one of the spouses to the personal property of the other spouse.
The decision was issued in connection with the former spouse’s application for the division of joint property acquired during the marriage. According to the applicant, the joint property included her cash contribution in the amount of PLN 20,000, which she had transferred to her ex-husband before getting married. This contribution was to be used for the purchase of real estate. The first-instance court agreed with the applicant’s arguments and awarded PLN 20,000 from the former husband in favor of her in the judgment on the division of joint property.
The second-instance court dismissed the review, an appeal then available to the participants, brought by the applicant and her ex-husband against the decision of the first-instance court. Subsequently, the Prosecutor General filed an extraordinary review, demanding that the decision of the court of second instance be set aside to the extent that it dismissed the review of the participant – the applicant’s ex-husband, and that the decision of the court of first instance be set aside in the part in which it determined that the applicant contributed PLN 20,000 to the common property and awarded from the participant to the applicant the amount for the reimbursement of outlays from the applicant’s separate property to the participant’s separate property.
The Supreme Court noted that Art. 45 § 1 of the Family and Guardianship Code regulates only the obligation of expenses and outlays made from joint property to the spouse’s personal property and the right to demand reimbursement of outlays made from personal property to joint property. However, this provision does not regulate the equalization of outlays made from the personal property of one spouse to the personal property of the other. It is possible to demand reimbursement of these expenses, however, this issue is not regulated by the Family and Guardianship Code. Reimbursement of outlays made from one’s own personal property to the spouse’s personal property is therefore subject to the norms of civil law in the substantive part, and in the procedural part – civil proceedings. As a consequence, in the cases in question, an action should be brought for adjudication of the indicated amount as reimbursement of outlays made on the defendant’s personal property from his own personal property. In addition, this circumstance must be duly proven, because the burden of proof rests with the claimant.