Caring for parents is the norm here

Your August front page ran a shock-horror headline on UK families possibly having to pay for parents’ care in French care homes.

But, given French inheritance law, is this so surprising?

Younger French family members can indeed find themselves liable for the care debt of a parent.

My husband spent his final months in a French hospice at our own expense, and naturally his other debts – incurred during the last years of his progressive illness and due to provision of equipment largely for his exclusive benefit – also had to be met on his death.

I was advised that all of these expenses should have been shared among his three sons, except that making such a claim would have added to our already heavy burden.

We preferred a final option, avoiding their inclusion in the ownership of our property.

However, the disruption and debt then became mine: my stepsons would not have enjoyed a £12,000-plus debt.

French children cannot be disinherited from family property (as opposed to disposable assets), but they can be expected to share if misfortune strikes the holding generation.

Davine Marsden
Cher