The legal entitlement to a daycare place is fulfilled when the place is provided and not only when the child has completed the familiarisation process. This has now been clarified by the Frankenthal Regional Court (LG) (Ref.: 3 O 148/25 of 4 December 2025). It thus largely dismissed a mother's lawsuit against the city of Ludwigshafen.

The mother had demanded compensation for her child's familiarisation period at the daycare centre. She had had to extend her parental leave because the city had allocated her a place too late. She had initially registered her child in two daycare centres for January 2025, then for another one at the beginning of March. She then received a place at the daycare centre in mid-March.

According to the court, however, the city only had to pay compensation for the period from the beginning to the middle of March, as it had only breached its official duties for this period. After the mother had enrolled her child in a daycare centre for the third time at the beginning of March, the city had to assume that the need only existed from March and not since January. The city had then fulfilled its official duty by providing the daycare place in mid-March. Compensation for expenses incurred during the familiarisation period is not provided for in the German Social Code.