The amounts spent by a parent to house a child are not considered a gift, and are therefore not to be reincorporated into the estate, according to a ruling by the Court of Cassation.
Just because a parent houses a child in conditions that are expensive for themselves does not mean they intend to give them a gift.
Consequently, according to the Court of Cassation, there is a lack of a condition for the other heirs, at the time of the succession, to be able to claim the reinstatement of this advantage in the mass to be shared.
Only gifts can be reported in the estate and shared, at the request of the other heirs, if they have impoverished the person who gave it. But on the one hand, the Court ruled in October 2013, a gift may not have impoverished the person who gave it given his wealth, and on the other hand, conversely, one cannot deduce from impoverishment proof of the intention to make a gift. One does not entail the other, the two concepts are independent.
The person who benefited from it will not have to return the money.
In this case, when their father died, brothers and sisters accused one of them of having received a gift of tens of thousands of euros by being housed cheaply in their father’s apartment. They estimated the gift at nearly 200,000 euros and demanded that the recipient return it so that they could share it.
However, the court concluded that if this advantage did indeed impoverish the father, it remains to be proven that he intended to give a gift to this son and that he did not only provide indispensable assistance to this son. In the absence of proof, there is no gift and nothing to claim.
(Cass. Civ 1, 12.6.2024, A 22-19.569).
