Compensatory allowance: restoring the truth of lifestyles

Written by Guillaume Pouillier, CNAPS-licensed private detective, licence no. AGD 095-2024-03-06-20190240581 · Last updated: July 19, 2026

At divorce, each party has an interest in presenting his situation in a certain light: the one who will pay understates his resources; the one who will receive understates hers and overstates her needs. Yet the French compensatory allowance (articles 270 and 271 of the Civil Code) is set precisely on those elements, income, assets, standard of living, prospects, declared on honour (art. 272). Our role: putting facts back into a declaratory debate, in support of your lawyer, whether you are the debtor or the creditor of the allowance. This page explains how the allowance is set, what we document on each side, and at which moments of the proceedings the findings weigh most.

How is the compensatory allowance set?

The judge compensates the disparity the divorce creates in the parties’ respective living conditions (art. 270 CC), considering notably the length of the marriage, age, health, qualifications, assets and income, declared on honour (art. 272 CC). The whole mechanism therefore rests on the sincerity of the declarations.

The declaration on honour is the system’s Achilles heel: it is only tested if someone produces contrary elements. Under-reported non-salaried income, partly cash-based activity, assets parked in structures, a lifestyle funded by a third party, realities that escape the accounting documents produced.

That is the investigator’s terrain: documenting the gap between the declared and the lived, through dated findings your lawyer will put before the court. A false declaration also exposes its author both civilly and criminally, provided it can be demonstrated.

What do we document on the debtor’s side… and the creditor’s?

On the presumed payer’s side: actual activity, apparent income, visible assets and the effective lifestyle where they exceed the declared. On the presumed beneficiary’s side: a stable undeclared cohabitation, concealed activity, a standard of living unrelated to the pleaded needs. The method is the same, only the instructing party changes.

The same findings serve child maintenance matters and, for the heavy patrimonial module, extend into an asset investigation.

Does the creditor’s cohabitation change the picture?

Yes, at two moments: before the allowance is set, a stable community of life weighs on the assessment of needs; after the divorce, an allowance set as an annuity can be revised, suspended or terminated upon a significant change, and notorious cohabitation is the classic example.

Cohabitation is not proven with a single photograph: judges require a stable and continuous community of life. Our work therefore documents duration, regular presence, personal effects, apparent sharing of expenses, common social life, through a series of findings spaced over time, fairly obtained from public space.

The same standard applies in reverse: a debtor who alleges his ex-spouse’s cohabitation to stop paying will have to establish it seriously, at his own risk otherwise. In both cases, the series of findings makes the difference between an intuition and a proof.

At which point of the proceedings should you investigate?

As early as possible: before the interim-measures hearing, findings already weigh; before the final determination, they are decisive; after the divorce, they ground the revision. Once the allowance has been set as paid-out capital, however, it is generally too late.

1. From the separation. Behaviours are still natural: the best window to document the actual lifestyle.

2. Before the hearing. Dated findings feed your lawyer’s submissions at the moment everything is decided.

3. After the judgment. For an annuity: documentation of the significant change (cohabitation, return to better fortune) supporting a revision application.

4. At enforcement. Unpaid allowance: debtor tracing and the solvency check take over.

Is this evidence admissible before the family judge?

Yes, on the usual fairness conditions: observation from public space, open sources, no intrusion into intimacy, family litigation is particularly sensitive to it. Our reports are designed for that courtroom: factual, dated, proportionate to the stakes.

The French family judge admits licensed investigators’ reports and gives them all the more weight when they are measured: no disproportionate surveillance, no interference with intimate life, findings directly linked to the patrimonial question at hand. Our experience of family litigation, see also adultery & divorce and child custody, calibrates each set-up accordingly.

Discretion also protects your interests: an exposed investigation degrades the climate of the proceedings and alerts the other side, who adjusts her declarations.

Eight criteria, one common thread: sincerity

Length of the marriage, age and health, professional qualifications and situation, the consequences of career choices made during the common life, estimated assets after liquidation, existing and foreseeable rights, pension situation: the criteria of article 271 are all vulnerable to concealment, and all documentable.

Take the criterion of “professional choices made during the common life”: it requires comparing trajectories, hence actual situations. Or the “estimated or foreseeable” assets: a recent gift to a relative, an undervalued company, a property “sold” at a friendly price change the estimate entirely. Each criterion of article 271 has its investigative angle, and a well-prepared file sweeps them methodically rather than betting everything on a single spectacular finding.

That is also why the calendar matters: documenting eight criteria takes weeks, not days. The earlier your lawyer brings us in, the more complete the file arrives at the hearing, and the fewer surprises the other side’s declarations can spring.

Two typical files, anonymised

A “ruined” business owner whose officially dormant company ran under a front man, the allowance set on reality; an annuity creditor “living alone” who had been settled at her partner’s for two years, the annuity terminated after revision.

The very active dormant company. As the allowance is about to be set, a director pleads the collapse of his business. Three weeks of findings establish the same trade continuing under a structure in an employee’s name: same premises, same suppliers, same clientele. The family judge sets the allowance on the actual capacity, our report as the central exhibit.

The annuity and the partner. A debtor pays an annuity to his ex-wife, declared as living alone. A series of findings over four months documents a stable community of life: daily presence, joint shopping, shared holidays. The revision application ends in termination of the annuity for the future. The four-month spacing of the findings was decisive: no single observation proved anything, but the series left no room for the “occasional visits” defence, and the judge said as much in the reasons.

How much does it cost?

A compensatory-allowance investigation is built to measure: one-off findings fall under administrative enquiries (from €350 excl. VAT); observation is invoiced at €85/hour (excl. VAT) (day rate €850, degressive with volume). A typical file, a series of findings over several weeks, gets a prior, free, written flat fee.

Set that cost against the amounts at stake: a compensatory allowance commonly runs to tens of thousands of euros, as capital or as an annuity over years. Documenting reality is, by far, the file’s most profitable investment.

See the full price list.

Frequently asked questions