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Reimbursement rights after a relationship: why cohabitants often end up empty-handed

2 July 2026Juriaan de Vries

Introduction

A man and a woman live together for twenty-two years. They buy a house together and have a cohabitation agreement drawn up before a notary, which says nothing about reimbursement rights. He puts more than €70,000 of his own money into the jointly owned home. When the relationship ends, he claims that amount back. In August 2025 the Gelderland District Court dismisses everything: part of the claim is time-barred, and for the rest there is no legal basis. He is left with nothing. Had the two been married, Section 1:87 DCC, the provision that applies only between spouses, would have given him back not only his contribution, but also a share in the increase in the value of the home.

That difference is the heart of this piece. When it comes to settling assets after a relationship, there are two worlds that scarcely resemble one another. Those who are married or in a registered partnership fall under a statutory system of reimbursement rights. Those who cohabit without being married and without watertight arrangements fall outside it and are left with the ordinary law of obligations, with an outcome that is far more often 'nothing' than people expect.

For this analysis, the leading judgments of the Supreme Court and the accompanying opinions of the Procurator General's Office have been reviewed, together with a series of recent decisions of the district courts and courts of appeal up to and including February 2026. The parliamentary history has also been consulted: the parliamentary papers on the Act adjusting the statutory community of property, the government's response to the WODC report Koude uitsluiting, and the passage of the private member's bill that limited the statutory community of property. In the decisions analysed, a consistent line emerges: matrimonial property law corrects shifts of assets almost automatically, whereas the cohabitant must prove for themselves that anything can be reclaimed, and usually fails to do so.

Two regimes, one decisive choice

When a relationship is wound up, the question 'will I get my money back?' turns on one prior choice: is there a marriage or registered partnership, or not. That choice determines which legal system applies, and that system often determines the outcome before the facts are even considered. A registered partnership is treated on the same footing as marriage: Section 1:80b DCC declares the rules of matrimonial property law to apply by analogy, so that registered partners have the same reimbursement rights as spouses. The dividing line therefore does not run between marriage and partnership, but between those who have registered their relationship and those who cohabit without being married.

For spouses, a closed statutory system applies. Assets that shift from one spouse to the other or to the community of property give rise, in principle and by operation of law, to a reimbursement right: the right of recovery within the community, the taking back of what came out of a private estate (Sections 1:95 and 1:96 DCC) and the reimbursement right between the private estates (Section 1:87 DCC). A person who invests in a partner's privately held business, or contributes labour to it, is even partly compensated by way of Section 1:95a DCC.

For those living together informally, none of this exists. In its judgment of 10 May 2019 the Supreme Court expressly held that Section 1:87 DCC and the other titles of Book 1 do not lend themselves to application by analogy to cohabitants. They fall back on the general law of obligations in Book 6. That works out harshly: where the law protects the spouse without any arrangement being needed, the cohabitant has to arrange everything themselves, and usually has not done so.

Spouses: contribution returned, plus a share in the increase in value

The regime for spouses rests on case law predating the statute. The Supreme Court laid the foundation in the Kriek/Smit judgment of 1987. A woman had used the proceeds of her own home to finance the matrimonial homes, which were put in the man's name. On divorce she claimed a share in the increase in value. The Supreme Court accepted that reimbursement rights can arise between spouses outside the statute, and that in exceptional cases the standards of reasonableness and fairness can override the rule that only the nominal amount is returned. In her opinion, Advocate General Biegman-Hartogh had already drawn a sharp distinction between the sphere of income, where interest belongs, and the sphere of capital, where the increase in the value of a home lies.

Since 1 January 2012 that idea has been codified in Section 1:87 DCC as the main rule: the investment doctrine (beleggingsleer). The reimbursement right follows the value of the asset in which the investment was made, calculated as the ratio between the investment and the acquisition price, multiplied by the current value. A decision of the Gelderland District Court from 2024 shows the arithmetic concretely: a repayment of €22,933 grew into a reimbursement right of €46,472, and investments of almost €43,000 into more than €63,000, because the home had meanwhile risen sharply in value.

Which fraction applies depends on what was paid. Section 1:87(2) DCC contains two measures: under (a) the ratio between the contribution and the total consideration for the asset, and under (b) the ratio between the amount paid and the value of the asset at the time of that payment. The memorandum of reply to the Senate states expressly which applies when. A repayment on the debt incurred to acquire the asset falls under (a), even though limb (b) speaks of repayment, because such a repayment means that part of the purchase price is, after all, borne by the other estate. The timing of the repayment is then irrelevant. Limb (b) was written for contributions to renovation work, and there the value at the time of the investment does matter (Parliamentary Papers I 2008/09, 28 867, C, pp. 14-18). The distinction is not academic: limb (b) breaks down as soon as more is repaid than the asset is worth at that moment, because the fraction then exceeds one.

The Gelderland decision follows that line exactly for the repayment: €22,933 divided by the purchase price of €112,365, multiplied by the current value of €227,700. For the investments, however, the court used the purchase price plus the investment as the denominator, whereas limb (b) takes the value of the home at the time of payment. The judgment records that the other party had not disputed the method of calculation, so the point was not litigated out.

Whoever shares in the increase in value through the investment doctrine also shares in the loss. That proved painful in a case before the Noord-Holland District Court from 2021: a woman had invested €67,350 of inherited assets in the private limited company (BV) whose shares her husband held and which fell within the matrimonial community. Once it was established that those shares were worthless, her reimbursement right too was nil: the investment had been entirely lost. The remainder of the inheritance had gone on community debts and day-to-day expenditure, and for that she did receive a nominal reimbursement of €83,481. Within marriage, then, two yardsticks exist side by side: the investment doctrine for what is invested in an asset, and nominal value for what has gone on debts and consumption.

Even within marriage the reimbursement right has its limits. In 2023 the The Hague Court of Appeal moderated a reimbursement for purely cosmetic renovation on the basis of the standards of reasonableness and fairness in Section 6:2 DCC: only value-increasing investments, such as solar panels, count. And where an inheritance ends up in the community solely through commingling, without being invested in an identifiable asset, the reimbursement remains nominal: the investment doctrine then does not apply, as the same court held in October 2025.

Two elements of the spousal regime draw the sharpest contrast with cohabitants. First, the burden of proof: a person who pays private assets into the community in principle acquires a reimbursement right against that community, and it is for the other spouse to assert and if necessary prove that the right cannot be enforced in whole or in part, as the Supreme Court held on 5 April 2019. That reimbursement right is, however, limited by the duty to contribute to the costs of the household: in so far as a spouse was obliged under Section 1:84 DCC to contribute that money to the household, no reimbursement remains on balance (Supreme Court, 27 January 2023). Second, limitation: reimbursement rights between spouses are subject to the long period of twenty years under Section 3:306 DCC, not the short periods. On 23 December 2022 the Supreme Court held that the nature of the marital relationship precludes applying those short periods by analogy. The ground for this goes back to the parliamentary history of Book 1, which the judgment cites: the legislature feared that taking legal measures during the marriage would seriously endanger married life. Of a cohabitant, precisely that is expected.

What the legislature intended with Section 1:87

The parliamentary history explains why the regime for spouses is so generous, and where its limits lie. The explanatory memorandum sets out why the old starting point was abandoned: the nominalist view "is generally felt to be inequitable, at least in matrimonial property law, and has accordingly been strongly criticised in the literature" (Parliamentary Papers II 2002/03, 28 867, no. 3, p. 17). Kriek/Smit had qualified that main rule only to a limited extent. The solution adopted ties the reimbursement to the asset itself, so that the contributing spouse "participates economically, both positively and negatively, in the development in value of the asset acquired" (no. 3, p. 18).

Those same papers reveal a three-tier system, of which practice often makes two. Where a contribution has been made to an asset that may rise or fall in value, the investment doctrine applies and both gain and loss are shared. Where the asset is by its nature intended to be consumed, the reimbursement is always nominal: "In the case of assets of which it is established in advance that they will fall in value, because they are intended to be consumed, there is no ground for applying the investment doctrine: the right to reimbursement would thereby be hollowed out from the outset." The examples given are a racing bicycle, a car and a stereo system (Parliamentary Papers II 2005/06, 28 867, no. 9, p. 11). That exception did not appear in the original bill and was added by memorandum of amendment. And where the contribution fell within the duty to contribute to the costs of the household under Section 1:84 DCC, the legislature took the view that it gives no occasion for reimbursement at all, because an obligation of one's own has then been discharged. In the judgment of 27 January 2023 the Supreme Court reaches the same outcome by a slightly different route: the reimbursement right does arise, but nothing remains on balance so far as the duty to contribute extends.

The consent requirement in Section 1:87(3) DCC also has a pronounced rationale. A spouse who draws on the other's estate without consent, or unlawfully, must reimburse at least the nominal amount; where consent was given, the investment doctrine applies in full, including on the downside. The reason: "The spouse who himself consents to the investment may be taken thereby to accept the risk of a fall in value as well." Whoever relies on that consent must prove it if required (Parliamentary Papers I 2008/09, 28 867, C, p. 19).

Telling is what the legislature sought to achieve relative to the case law that preceded the Act. The memorandum of amendment states that the new measures achieve "a sharp normative framework for reimbursement rights, in a sense sharper than under the current Kriek/Smit case law" (no. 9, p. 11). The open equitable test of 1987 was thus replaced by rules of calculation, not supplemented by them. That does not switch equity off: for the exceptional case in which reimbursement rights at investment value and at nominal value combine unhappily, the minister considered a correction under Section 6:2 DCC "not entirely excluded" (C, pp. 19-20). The moderation applied by the Hague Court of Appeal in 2023 therefore falls within the legislature's intention, as an exception rather than a rule.

Finally, the evidentiary difficulty that characterises these cases is anticipated in the Act itself. The notarial profession and the Bar warned during consultation that the section would not always be straightforward to apply. The legislature acknowledged this and added subsection 5: where the reimbursement cannot be determined precisely, it is to be estimated. That provision is deliberately modelled on Section 6:97 DCC on the assessment of damages (no. 9, p. 11).

Cohabitants: no Section 1:87, only the ordinary law

For those living together informally, on 10 May 2019 the Supreme Court set out the framework that has governed everything since. Four routes are open, in this order. First, an express or implied agreement between the partners, supplemented by the operation of the standards of reasonableness and fairness in Section 6:248 DCC. Second, undue payment (Section 6:203 DCC). Third, unjust enrichment (Section 6:212 DCC). Fourth, as a safety net, the requirements of reasonableness and fairness in Section 6:2 DCC, but only where there are special circumstances that the claimant must set out concretely.

That the framework works out so strictly was a deliberate choice. In his opinion on the 2019 judgment, Advocate General Langemeijer argued for precisely the opposite. He considered the reference to the law of obligations alone 'too strict for a modern law of relationship property' and wished to assume a legal relationship governed by reasonableness and fairness for people who live together durably as though they were married. His argument: 'it is often precisely the shared fate that leads a life partner to make funds available to his or her partner without concluding a loan agreement and without stipulating a reimbursement right.' The Supreme Court did not follow that opinion. It opted for legal certainty and freedom of contract: those who deliberately do not marry and record nothing cannot later invoke the protection of marriage. The harshness of the rule therefore rests on a deliberate weighing of interests, which could have come out differently.

A common error was closed off by the Supreme Court on 17 November 2023. After 2019, district courts and courts of appeal regularly assumed that a cohabitant who had contributed unequally to a jointly owned home had, without more, a reimbursement right against that community. That is incorrect. A jointly owned home of cohabitants is a simple community within the meaning of Section 3:166 DCC: not a separate estate, and without debts of its own. In her opinion, Advocate General Wesseling-van Gent pointed out that a reimbursement right 'against' such a community therefore cannot exist. Even in the case of joint ownership, the question must therefore be assessed under the ordinary law of obligations. Moreover, repaying a financing debt does not fall under the acts for the preservation of a jointly owned asset in Section 3:172 DCC.

When does a cohabitant nonetheless recover something?

In the decisions analysed, these four routes precisely determine when a claim succeeds and when it fails.

The strongest route is the first: a clear arrangement. Where the parties had included a reimbursement clause in a cohabitation agreement, the Gelderland District Court in 2023 awarded the full claim of €73,902. The court construed the amount of €55,000 named in the contract as an estimate, not a ceiling, because the size of the investments was not yet fixed at the time of signing. But an agreement cuts both ways. An arrangement on how housing costs would be divided after separation was precisely what blocked a claim for compensation for use before the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. And an interest-free, and therefore nominal, reimbursement clause excludes the investment doctrine: in 2023 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal held that a partner who had repaid €77,319 on the mortgage got that amount back at its nominal value and could not share in the increase in value, because the contract so provided.

The second route, undue payment, seems the most obvious, but almost always fails on the requirement that the payment was made without a legal ground. Between (former) partners that legal ground is nearly always present: the payment flows from an often implied arrangement about how costs would be shared, from a natural obligation, or from the contribution to the joint household. When a man reclaimed half of the mortgage charges he had paid, in 2025 the Noord-Holland District Court inferred an implied division of costs from the parties' actual conduct; this formed the legal ground that blocked both undue payment and unjust enrichment. In the case of a jointly owned home, there is the further point that the money is usually not paid to the partner but to the bank or put into the house, which undermines the doctrine still further.

The third route, unjust enrichment, has two steps. The first: has the owner been enriched? That may be through an increase in the value of the home, but this is rarely established with a valuation, so in practice it turns on saving: has the owner saved an expense that they would otherwise have made or would have had to make? In 2022 the Noord-Holland District Court made this tangible within a single judgment. A man had invested in his partner's home. For a walk-in wardrobe (€1,040) and a fence (€1,010) he received reimbursement: the woman would have made those outlays herself. For a bath of €13,000 he received nothing, because the woman would never have bought it herself: no saving, no enrichment. In a comparable case before the Midden-Nederland District Court, a claim of more than €31,000 in renovation costs failed entirely, because it had not been asserted that the owner would have made those outlays herself.

The second step often disposes of the rest: even an established saving leads to reimbursement only if the enrichment is unjust, that is, if there is no reasonable ground for it. An arrangement between the parties, or the acceptance that one contributed more out of care for the family, readily provides such a ground. In 2025 the Gelderland District Court held that any enrichment flowed from the arrangements made and was therefore not unjust. The burden of proving all of this rests on the investor, and it is precisely with large or personal outlays that this burden fails.

The fourth route, the safety net of reasonableness and fairness, almost never comes to the rescue. In the most recent case, from the Limburg District Court in February 2026, fairness even worked against the claimant. A man had assembled a claim of just over €93,000: half of the mortgage repayments and of the purchase price he had paid, his investments in the home, and in addition a series of payments that had nothing to do with the home. The court dismissed nearly everything: in a family in which the incomes were pooled for the joint charges, the lower-earning partner was entitled to rely on the mere fact that the other earned more not leading later to a claim. For the cohabitant, fairness is more often a shield for the partner against whom the claim is brought than a sword for the claimant.

The pitfalls: limitation, the wrong legal basis, and the caring role

Alongside these four routes, three recurring obstacles determine whether a claim survives at all.

The first is limitation, and it is the sharpest. Cohabitants' claims are time-barred after five years. Which provision governs that period depends on the basis of the claim: Section 3:307 DCC for performance of an agreement, Section 3:309 DCC for undue payment, and Section 3:310(1) DCC for unjust enrichment and for recourse. The period begins to run at the moment of the investment or the repayment, not only at the end of the relationship or the division of the house: a reimbursement claim falls due as soon as it arises, unless the parties have agreed otherwise. The ground for extension that protects spouses and registered partners (Section 3:321(1)(a) and (g) DCC) does not apply to cohabitants, and there is no equivalent for them. In 2024 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal applied this mercilessly. On 1 October 2014 a man had repaid the joint mortgage debt of €244,588 in a single payment, thereby acquiring a recourse claim against his partner for half of that amount. That claim became time-barred exactly five years later, on 1 October 2019. The court expressly rejected the argument that such a claim becomes due only on division: the man had his own responsibility to secure his claim within the period, for instance by way of a cohabitation agreement. Those who wait to bring a claim until the house is divided are therefore often already too late.

The second obstacle is the wrong legal basis. Section 6:10 DCC, which governs recourse between joint and several debtors, offers relief only where someone has paid more than their share of a joint debt, and does not cover a private contribution put into the purchase price outside the mortgage, as the Gelderland District Court held in June 2025. And Section 3:172 DCC, on co-owners' duty to contribute, concerns only preservation and upkeep, not renovation or repayment.

The third is the non-financial contribution. A person who ran the household, cared for the children, or worked unpaid in the partner's business thereby brings a counterweight that neutralises the investing partner's claim. In February 2025 the Gelderland District Court observed, in an interim judgment, that it was not apparent why the partner who had kept the books for the other's business free of charge should have to contribute proportionally to all the costs. One person's euros and the other's hours are weighed against each other.

When the ex will not cooperate: sale and compensation for use

Two practical questions recur again and again with a jointly owned home: who pays for the use while one of the two continues to live there, and how to reach a resolution when the other is obstructive.

For the first there is compensation for use. The departed co-owner may, under Section 3:169 DCC, seek compensation for the loss of the use of their share in the home. Here too an arrangement takes precedence: in 2024 the Amsterdam Court of Appeal dismissed a claim for compensation for use because the parties had already made arrangements about the housing costs when they separated. For the period thereafter a modest compensation was conceivable, but it fell away because the departed partner had not borne the remaining owner's charges. The court therefore weighs such compensation against the charges the other is meanwhile bearing.

If the ex will not cooperate in a sale, Section 3:174 DCC offers a way out: the court may authorise the most diligent co-owner to sell the home, if necessary in preliminary relief proceedings (kort geding). The Overijssel District Court did so in November 2025 when a forced sale was looming: the partner who was living in the home part of the time with the children and was the only one in contact with the bank was granted the authorisation, and the recalcitrant ex was deemed, under Section 3:300 DCC, to cooperate. The division of the sale proceeds itself, however, does not lend itself to preliminary relief proceedings, because for that the ordinary division procedure of Section 3:178 DCC is required. Forcing a swift sale is therefore possible; settling up swiftly is not.

Money invested in your partner's business

For business practice the dividing line is sharper still. If a spouse invests private assets in the other's private limited company (BV), the reimbursement follows the investment doctrine, with profit and, as the Noord-Holland case showed, loss. If a privately held business increases in value during the marriage through the entrepreneur's labour, the community is entitled under Section 1:95a DCC to a reasonable compensation for the knowledge, skills and labour deployed. By that route, in 2023 the Amsterdam District Court awarded two-thirds of an increase in value of €115,198 to the community, half of which, €38,399, went to the wife.

The cohabitant who invests in, or works in, the partner's business misses all of this. Without an arrangement there is no investment doctrine, no Section 1:95a, and only the arduous route of unjust enrichment remains, with the saving threshold and the limitation period that already proved fatal above. That makes the property-law risk in a jointly run business of unmarried partners considerable, especially where one holds the shares and the other contributes the money or the hours. The commercial litigation track and the property-law settlement then become intertwined, and the party who has in fact contributed the most is often legally the weakest.

Why cohabitants were left outside the scheme

All of this raises the question why the legislature left cohabitants outside the system of reimbursement rights. That is not an oversight. The question has come up five times since 2003: twice deferred, three times rejected.

As early as the 2003 bill, the question was on the table whether a court should be able to correct the outcome of a separation on equitable grounds. The explanatory memorandum describes the example of a wife married under a full separation of property who ran the household, and weighs the arguments both ways. Predictability proved decisive: comparative research showed that "in England, less favourable experience has been gained with the application of reasonableness and fairness to the division of assets on divorce. There, this leads to proceedings with less readily predictable outcomes." The conclusion was to let the subject rest "for the time being" (no. 3, p. 2).

It returned in September 2008. Member De Wit tabled a motion to investigate how property-law consequences could be attached to the ending of a durable relationship between unmarried cohabitants, citing Hungary and Sweden. The minister saw the parallel and called a long-term relationship between people who are not married "in fact a kind of cold exclusion" as well. He undertook to commission research, whereupon the motion was withdrawn.

That research appeared in 2011 as the WODC report Koude uitsluiting. The government's response of 26 September 2011 runs through the rules that might be declared applicable by analogy to cohabitants, and deals with Section 1:87 DCC separately. In the Antillean draft then pending, the investment doctrine was extended to two persons who had lived together as though married, on the reasoning that a person who helps pay for the other's house "ought to be able to share in an increase in value". For the Netherlands the decision went the other way, and the ground was expressly one of timing: "Section 1:87 DCC will enter into force on 1 January 2012. No experience has therefore yet been gained with this section. It has been pointed out from various quarters that this section is not straightforward to apply. I therefore consider it too early at present to declare this scheme applicable by analogy to unmarried cohabitants." Application by analogy of Section 1:84 DCC was rejected in the same letter as being of "little use".

After consulting the judiciary, the Bar and the notarial profession, the state secretary reported in February 2012 that a statutory equitable correction was not considered necessary. Two observations in that same letter deserve attention: according to the judiciary, the existing rules could be invoked "in more cases", and the Bar found the courts "generally reticent" in these matters. The reasoning that legislation is superfluous because the courts can correct the outcome thus rests on a practice which the same document finds to be under-correcting.

The fourth occasion was a vote. During the private member's bill limiting the statutory community of property, member Van Nispen proposed a new title on unmarried cohabitation: a person who had performed unpaid work in the other's business or household, taken on caring duties, or become seriously ill or disabled during the cohabitation would acquire a claim to fair compensation on the ending of the cohabitation, as mandatory law and subject to a three-year period. The bill's sponsors advised against it as "a substantial juridification of society" and referred the subject to a separate bill. On behalf of the VVD the objection of principle was put this way: "if people had wanted to marry, they would have done so". The amendment was withdrawn before the vote; the motion that replaced it was rejected on 19 April 2016, with four parliamentary groups in favour.

Since the 2019 judgment the position has been confirmed once more. Answering parliamentary questions in 2022 about the problems cohabitants face on a break-up, the minister pointed to party autonomy. The policy response of 20 April 2023 states the conclusion: a statutory equitable correction for unmarried cohabitants "would constitute an infringement of these partners' autonomy", the existing doctrines of reasonableness and fairness and of unforeseen circumstances suffice, and "I see no need to make additional arrangements in this field". The chosen course is public information.

The upshot is that the Supreme Court's referral to the ordinary law of obligations is not an interim position pending legislation. The legislature has seen the question, had it researched and answered it, the reasoning shifting along the way from "too early" to respect for the choice not to marry. The dissenting opinion of the Advocate General in 2018 argued for precisely what had been voted down two years earlier.

What does this mean in practice?

For those who cohabit without being married the message is unpleasantly simple: investing in the jointly owned home or business feels like saving, but is legally often a non-recoverable contribution to family life. The only reliable protection is a written reimbursement or set-off clause, drawn up before the investment is made. The wording matters closely here: record whether a stated amount is a ceiling or an estimate, whether reimbursement is at nominal value or under the investment doctrine, and in the latter case which measure applies: the share in the purchase price, or the ratio to the value at the time of the investment. Those who also wish to close the limitation trap should record that the claim falls due only at the end of the relationship or on the division of the home; in 2025 the Gelderland District Court expressly left that exception open. Those who have already invested would be wise not to wait until the relationship ends, because the five-year limitation period runs during the relationship.

One question always arises where there is a family: does it make any difference if there are children? In property-law terms, no. Parenthood gives rise to a maintenance obligation towards the child (Section 1:404 DCC), whatever the form of the relationship, but it creates no claim between the parents on one another’s assets and no right to partner maintenance. That too is an express choice: a maintenance scheme for cohabitants, with the option of contracting out of it, was on the table in 2023 and was rejected then by reference to the autonomy of partners.

For the entrepreneur with a partner, the question of who holds the shares and who contributes the money or the labour is decisive in property-law terms. For married couples, matrimonial property law absorbs this; for cohabitants it must be arranged in a cohabitation or loan agreement, preferably with security for the contributing party. In the absence of such an arrangement, a reliance on unjust enrichment is the last option on a break-up, and that stands or falls with proof of a concrete saving.

For the adviser, finally, the distinction between the regimes lies at the basis of every assessment. The reflex to reach for matrimonial property law in the case of cohabitants, or for older case law on matrimonial communities, is no longer tenable after the judgment of 17 November 2023. There is little point in counting on the legislature. The question is therefore always: is there an arrangement, is there a demonstrable saving, and is the claim not time-barred? Three questions that explain the outcome in the decisions analysed almost entirely.

Frequently asked questions

As a cohabitant, will I get back what I invested in my partner's house?

Usually not as a matter of course. Without an arrangement, a cohabitant is left with undue payment or unjust enrichment. For enrichment, what counts is either an increase in the value of the home or a saving, in the sense that the owner would otherwise have made, or would have had to make, the expense themselves, and that enrichment must, moreover, be unjust. A written reimbursement clause offers the strongest position.

What is the difference between the investment doctrine and a nominal reimbursement?

The investment doctrine links the reimbursement to the current value of the asset in which the investment was made: the investor shares in both profit and loss. A nominal reimbursement returns only the original amount. For spouses the investment doctrine has been the main rule since 2012; for cohabitants it applies only if the parties have expressly agreed it.

Does a reimbursement claim become time-barred after a relationship?

For cohabitants it does, and quickly: the period is five years and begins to run at the moment of the investment, not at the end of the relationship. Those who wait until the home is divided are often too late. Between spouses, by contrast, a period of twenty years applies, because they are not expected to litigate against one another during the marriage.

Why does Section 1:87 DCC not apply to cohabitants?

Because the legislature deliberately decided against it. In the 2011 government response to the WODC report Koude uitsluiting, extending the investment doctrine by analogy to unmarried cohabitants was considered, as the Antillean draft of the time had done. It was held to be too early because the section had yet to enter into force. In 2016 the House of Representatives rejected a motion for an equitable correction for cohabitants, and in 2023 the government stated that it saw no need for additional arrangements. The Supreme Court aligned with that position in 2019.

Case law cited

Supreme Court

Opinions of the Advocate General

Courts of appeal and district courts

Parliamentary papers cited

Juriaan de Vries — lawyer at Prime Law, specialising in corporate and commercial litigation. See the disclaimer.

See also