Some Considerations regarding the Legal Obligation of Maintenance

Abstract

The legal obligation of maintenance is a ‘beaten path’, being subject to numerous doctrinal analyses and, at the same time, benefiting from the existence of a rich judicial practice. However, certain aspects have not received unanimous solutions, which leads us to reflect on some of them, such as the order in which the maintenance is owed by the (natural or adopted) children and the child who received maintenance from their parent’s spouse; preserving the successive nature of the maintenance in case of its advance payment; the distinction between the fundamental reasons that are the basis of the advance payment and the elements are taken into account when establishing the amount of maintenance; the applicability of art. 499 para. (1) Civil Code also in the case of children under the age of 18 who have acquired full exercise capacity under the conditions of art. 40 Civil Code; does art. 518 para. (2) Civil Code considers all heirs or only the universal ones with universal title?; is the solidarity provided in art. 521 paragraph (1) Civil Code an ‘optional’ one?; does ‘the value of the inherited goods’, which constitutes the limit in which an heir with the private title of the person who was obliged to support a minor or provided support to him without there being a legal norm imposing it, must grant support to that minor, also take into account the obligations whose coverage cannot be achieved from the other assets of the inheritance?