Loss-of-maintenance claims can make BV salary, side income and adviser bills explain a future.
The starting signal is ECLI:NL:PHR:2026:557, a Dutch court signal about loss-of-maintenance claims in criminal proceedings. For founders, the useful question is not the criminal file itself. It is what happens when a household, a BV salary and a future income story have to be reconstructed from records.
The signal has to become readable
An owner-manager can live for years with a pattern that feels obvious. His BV pays a salary. A holding receives a management fee. A partner earns something from a small side activity. An adviser sends invoices that mix annual accounts, tax work and special calculations. At the kitchen table, everyone knows roughly how the money works.
In court, roughly is not enough.
The court asks for a future
Dutch law allows a victim or certain surviving relatives to bring a civil damages claim inside criminal proceedings. Article 51f of the Wetboek van Strafvordering opens that route. Article 6:108 BW gives certain survivors a claim for loss of maintenance after death.
That route sounds practical. One procedure can deal with punishment and part of the financial damage. But a loss-of-maintenance claim is rarely simple when a founder-led company sits behind the income. A court is not only looking at a payslip. It is trying to understand what support would probably have existed in the future.
What the signal changes
That future depends on inputs. Was the BV salary stable because the business could carry it, or because nobody had questioned it for years? Did the management fee reflect real earning power? Was the side activity meaningful income or a small household supplement? Which AOW position belongs in the calculation? Which adviser costs are truly connected to the damage work?
The Hoge Raad has made the procedural limit clear. A damages claim in criminal proceedings is assessed under civil law, but the criminal court must still be sure both sides had a fair chance to present and test the claim. If that is not possible, the claim can become too heavy for the criminal case.
Private income becomes evidence
This is where the founder's private story becomes business evidence. A BV salary may feel personal because it pays the mortgage and the groceries. In the file, it is also a business decision. The same applies to management fees, current-account movements, retained earnings, tax returns and pension choices.
Public filings will not carry the full explanation. A micro or small BV can file limited annual accounts. That may satisfy the public register, but it does not explain why salary was set at a certain level, why a fee moved through a holding, or whether a bad year was temporary pressure or a structural decline.
What the file needs is a readable income story. That does not mean every small company needs a large-company reporting system. It means the important choices should be traceable before trouble arrives. A short note on salary logic can matter. So can management accounts, bank flows, client loss notes, tax returns and clean separation between normal adviser work and special damages work.
What founders should check
Adviser invoices are a quiet example. Article 6:96 BW can include reasonable costs for determining damage and liability. But an invoice that simply says advice may become weak if it includes annual accounts, income tax work, inheritance questions and damages calculations in one amount. This is not suspicion. It is separation.
What founders can keep readable
The practical review starts calmly. Can the owner explain why the BV salary is what it is? Can the management fee be matched to real work and accounts? Is side income documented with turnover, costs and hours? Are adviser invoices split by purpose? Are assumptions about retirement, AOW, life expectancy or business continuity written down when they are used?
These are not only courtroom questions. A lender, buyer, insurer, tax adviser or surviving family member may ask similar questions in a different language. They all need the same thing: a record that lets someone outside the family understand the income logic without guessing.
The emotional part should not be ignored. Loss-of-maintenance claims exist because life can break in a brutal way. A business record will not soften that. But a clear record can prevent an already painful calculation from becoming a fight over memory, habit and missing context.
That is the Polder reading here. The founder's income story is private while life is normal, but it may become public proof when a court has to calculate a future. The better answer is not more paperwork for its own sake. It is a calmer file: salary, fees, side income, adviser work and assumptions kept clear enough to be read. Then the business can still explain itself when the story is no longer told by the person who lived it.
Sources
- Uitspraak ECLI:NL:PHR:2026:557 – Semantius
- Rechtspraak – Prior Hoge Raad signal in the same underlying case
- Rechtspraak – Hoge Raad standard for complex victim claims in criminal proceedings
- Wettenbank – Statutory basis for joining as benadeelde partij
- Wettenbank – Civil-law basis for loss of maintenance after death
- Rechtspraak – Institutional report on damages claims in criminal proceedings
- Rijksoverheid – New Wetboek van Strafvordering and future split of complex damages claims
- Overheid.nl – Afsplitsing of complex benadeelde partij claims in the new code text
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