Court in Odesa forces IDP to return money to the state

The Kyiv District Court of Odesa upheld the claim of the Department of Labor and Social Policy of the Odesa City Council against an IDP, allegedly from Kherson region, ordering her to return UAH 30,000 of unlawfully received payments to the budget.

This was reported by the publication Most with reference to the court decision.

The court found that in March 2024, the IDP applied to social security authorities for a living allowance for herself and her two children. At that time, the family met the criteria for receiving assistance: the mother was registered at the employment center as a job seeker, the son was studying at the Military Academy in Odesa, and the daughter was a student at Kherson State University. The family was assigned a payment of UAH 7000 per month.

However, during the next re-registration of documents in April 2025, social services discovered changes in the family that the woman did not report within the 14-day period required by law. Thus, on June 30, 2024, her daughter completed her studies at Kherson State University, and on July 31, 2024, the woman herself was deregistered from the employment center because she had not applied for services for more than 60 days.

Due to the loss of her unemployment status and the completion of her daughter's studies, the family lost the right to automatic continuation of payments. As a result, for the period from August 2024 to March 2025, the woman was charged overpayments: UAH 2 thousand for her personally for August and UAH 28 thousand for her and her daughter for the next seven months.

In the summer of 2025, the social security department sent the woman a demand to voluntarily return the money, but she ignored it.

Having considered the case in the absence of the defendant, who did not appear at the hearing, the court concluded that failure to notify the recipient of changes affecting the right to receive assistance indicates bad faith on the part of the recipient.

Кирило Бойко