Supreme Court: A spouse is not required to pay the other spouse for continuing to live in the shared apartment after the separation

Mgr. Nikola Šedová

11. November 2026

1 minute of reading

Legal news

If an apartment jointly owned by spouses serves as their shared residence and family home, each spouse has the right to use it in its entirety. In its ruling, Case No. 28 Cdo 1624/2026, the Supreme Court held that if one spouse moves out and the other remains in the apartment, this alone does not give rise to an obligation to pay the other spouse compensation for the use of their co-ownership share.

The case involved a married couple, each of whom owned half of an apartment. After they effectively separated, only the wife continued to live there, while the husband demanded 120,000 crowns as restitution for unjust enrichment because she had been using his half of the apartment as well. The lower courts ruled in his favor, but the Supreme Court overturned their decisions. It emphasized that if the apartment constitutes the couple’s shared residence, each spouse has the right, by virtue of the marriage, to use the entire apartment, not just the portion corresponding to their co-ownership share. This right constitutes a legal basis for use and precludes the occurrence of unjust enrichment.

This conclusion is not affected by the fact that the other spouse left the shared household. The decision is particularly significant for property disputes between spouses following a de facto separation, provided they remain married and the shared apartment or house continues to serve as their family home. The Supreme Court addressed this issue explicitly for the first time; however, this does not mean that the same conclusion would automatically apply after a divorce or in other co-ownership relationships where the right to shared residence based on marriage no longer exists.