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The Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) confirmed the conviction of a man to pay more than 60 thousand euros to the ex-partner for the domestic work he developed over almost 30 years of de facto union.
In the ruling of January 14 and consulted today by Lusa, the STJ states that the exercise of domestic activity exclusively or essentially by one of the members of the de facto union, without consideration, “results in a real impoverishment of the latter and the corresponding release of the other member from these tasks ”.
The STJ considers that this translates into enrichment for the member of the couple who does not participate in domestic work, since it allows them to benefit from the result of carrying out these activities without costs or contributions.
The woman asked for at least 240 thousand euros, but in the first instance the Barcelos Court found that there was no place to pay any amount for the woman’s domestic work.
“As work done at home is not a legal requirement in the context of the de facto union, its provision as a contribution to the common economy is configured as the spontaneous fulfillment of a natural obligation,” said that court.
The woman appealed to Relação, who agreed with her and set the compensation at 60,782 euros.
The man appealed to the STJ, which confirmed the relationship decision.
The STJ indicates that, in situations of evident imbalance, “the provision of domestic work and the care, monitoring and education of children cannot be considered to correspond, respectively, to a natural obligation and the fulfillment of a duty”.
“The demand for equality has been inherent in the idea of justice for a long time, so it is not possible to consider that all or a large part of the domestic work in a house, where a married couple of the members of the facto union lives, it corresponds to the fulfillment of a natural obligation, based on a duty of justice ”, describes the sentence.
“On the contrary, such duty requires a distribution of tasks as equitable as possible, without prejudice to the possibility that the members of that relationship freely agree that one of them does not contribute to the provision of domestic work, in the logic of specializing the contributions from each one ”, he adds.
The STJ highlights that “domestic work, although strangely invisible to many, obviously has an economic value and translates into enrichment and savings in expenses.”
In this case, it has been found that. During the nearly 30 years that the man and the woman lived together, she was the one who looked after and cared for the house and prepared the couple’s meals.
Therefore, the STJ says that the option of weighing this reality in accounting for the contributions of women in the acquisition of the partner’s property is correct.
The STJ is also responsible for the work of education and monitoring of children, provided that it is carried out exclusively or mainly by one of the members of the couple.
To determine the value of domestic work, the court adopted as a criterion the national minimum wage, multiplied by 12 months, during the years of coexistence.
In total, it withdrew a third, considering the need to allocate part of that amount to women’s expenses.
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