In a tale stranger than fiction, an Austrian couple is being investigated for financial fraud after tying and untying the knot an astonishing 12 times over the last 43 years. Their convoluted marital history appears to have been a calculated scheme to exploit a legal loophole and rake in hundreds of thousands of euros.
The unusual arrangement reportedly began in 1981 after the wife became eligible for a €27,000 severance payout following the death of her first husband. Under Austrian law, widows were entitled to retain this payment so long as they did not remarry. However, every two-and-a-half years, she was entitled to an additional payout equivalent to 2.5 times her annual widow’s pension. To milk this provision, she and her second husband began a routine of divorcing just before the payout was due, only to remarry shortly after.
The elaborate ruse, which saw the couple live together all the while, went undetected for decades. Their scheme finally unravelled in May 2022 when the Pension Insurance Institute denied the widow’s pension claim following their twelfth divorce. A quick investigation exposed their pattern of divorces and remarriages, conveniently timed to coincide with the payout intervals.
Neighbours, who thought the pair were a model couple, were flabbergasted by the revelation. Despite their paperwork antics, the two reportedly shared a home, cooked together, and even shared a bed throughout their four-decade-long scam. Their behaviour has since prompted changes to Austrian law to seal the loophole they exploited.
In a ruling issued on 12 March 2024, Austria’s Supreme Court declared that “repeated marriage and subsequent divorce from the same spouse is an abuse of law if the marriage was never broken and the divorces only took place to establish a claim to a widow’s pension.”
The couple now faces trial on charges of fraud, with prosecutors alleging they pocketed €326,000 (£282,000) in illegitimate severance payments over the years. On a somewhat poetic note, their twelfth divorce was deemed invalid by authorities, leaving them to face the accusations as a married couple.
While their saga raises eyebrows and legal questions alike, one thing is certain—this pair redefined the meaning of "for better or worse."