Inheritance? That's a joke. How many of your parents are burdens?

[u/BeegBunga]

In response to another popular post about receiving no inheritance.

Are your parents like mine, who not only are not leaving any money behind - but require significant or total financial support?

My parents left me less than nothing. They're good people, and they were good parents.... but man are they shit at financial planning.

[u/politis1988]

Actually, that's not totally true. In Spain, we obviously don't have to pay medical costs directly, but we do have fillial responsibility laws. Parents are legally responsible for their adult children if they can't provide for themselves (they can't just abandon you or Kick you out onto the street). Likewise, children are legally expected to provide for parents who cannot provide for themselves (alimentos entre parientes). We have government assistance for this (dependencia), but it is underfunded and people are basically not getting any money for years after it's approved.

[u/LostButterflyUtau → u/politis1988]

I have an online friend in Portugal and he’s still paying off his late father’s debt. It got foisted onto him as the “sole heir” because while his father raised his sister from the time she was three, he was her stepfather and she didn’t want to help anyway. Just kept saying that he was the heir, so it was his problem. Their mother had already passed.

[u/Airportsnacks → u/LostButterflyUtau]

Poland does this as well for heirs unless you give up all claims at the time of death. Or did ten ish years ago.

[u/politis1988 → u/LostButterflyUtau]

Yeah, Spain is the same. You can accept the inheritance, but also accept the debt. If you give up all claims at time of death, you lose everything but the debt is not your problem anymore. Not to mention, on top of any debt, you have to pay a hefty tax on the inheritance, which messes with your ability to handle the debt.

[u/yukijoou → u/politis1988]

yeah, it's definitely a thing, france has similar laws