Moral obligation to a parent

Moral obligation to a parent

When an elderly person goes into a retirement home or is hospitalised, can their descendants be forced to contribute to the costs if they have no assets but only a modest income?

Adèle, Geneva

Your question calls for a nuanced response.

The law imposes a moral obligation on you. Article 272 of the French Civil Code states that parents and children owe each other the help, consideration and respect that the interests of the family require. This provision establishes a duty between parent and child that requires each to take into account the needs, interests, wishes and convictions of the other and to accept the consequences, sometimes unpleasant, on his or her own life. It also enshrines a duty of assistance that requires positive services of a very varied nature: care, education, spiritual and moral support, information, administrative assistance, management of interests, representation and also material, i.e. financial, assistance.

If your parent is in difficulty, you have a duty to help, financially if necessary, to the best of your ability. However, there is almost unanimous agreement that the duties of help, consideration and respect are natural obligations, with no direct penalties. In principle, therefore, you cannot be forced to provide financial assistance to your relative. However, since the entry into force of the Federal Law on Supplementary Benefits for OASI and DI on 6 October 2006, the situation is no longer so simple. If your income and assets exceed the threshold set by the legislation, the State may come to you and ask you to reimburse part of your parent's EMS or hospital costs, particularly if you have benefited from an act of gratuitous disposal on his or her part, such as a donation, loan or waiver of claim.

Finally, certain legal rules indirectly ensure compliance with the above-mentioned moral obligation: if you decide, for example, to help your relative by paying his or her bills, you will not be able to change your mind and ask for them to be reimbursed later. What's more, if you were to seriously fail in your duties to help, show consideration and show respect, the guardianship authority could call you to account and remind you of them, so that your parent could be entitled to claim back from you any assets that he or she might have donated to you, or even to have you discharged.