58 ANNUAL REPORT 2014 The wife continued to live in Denmark until she was diagnosed with dementia at a very old age. At that point, her children decided that she too should move to Germany to be cared for by the daughter. Consequently, in March of 2010, the wife moved into the same house where her husband was living. Both husband and wife required a very high level of care and had their own rooms at the daughter’s house. When the Danish authorities discovered that the couple was living under the same roof, the pensions were reduced and the authorities made a demand for repayment of a total of more than DKK 165,000. In the authorities’ opinion, the couple was now no longer single within the meaning of the Social Pensions Act, seeing as they were now living together again and had the advantages which married and cohabiting couples normally have. By the time the case reached the Ombudsman, the situation had reached deadlock for the family, as none of the cases had been considered by the appeals body (the National Social Appeals Board). For various reasons, the couple’s children had complained too late about the decision regarding their father’s pension, and with regard to their mother’s case, the municipality would not accept that the children could complain on her behalf. For formal reasons, the Ombudsman could not at that point consider the decisions, but we saw to it that the cases got back on track. The National Social Appeals Board was given the opportunity to see if the Board would be willing to overlook that the complaint had been submitted too late with regard to the husband’s case. The wife’s case was sent on to Udbetaling Danmark (the body responsible for, among other things, disbursement of pensions and other benefits) as a complaint, and later that case also ended up before the Board. In the autumn of 2014, the National Social Appeals Board decided that the couple was still single within the meaning of the Social Pensions Act, also after the wife had moved to Germany. The care-requiring couple did not, even after the wife’s move, enjoy the benefits which married and cohabiting persons normally do, and the demand for repayment was dropped. THE MUNICIPALITY HAD TO MAKE A DECISION In another case, a man with a background in banking had not been a member of the work force since 2007. In 2011, the man was refused early retirement pension, and a couple of years later the municipality carried out a renewed