“It’s mind-blowing.” Stéphanie*, can’t believe it. A beneficiary of supplementary family benefits (PC) from the State of Vaud for several years, she was informed, in mid-July, that she would no longer receive this financial assistance intended to cover the essential needs of her household.
The cause? Her daughter Léa* recently inherited a house estimated at 160,000 francs from her dad, Stéphanie’s ex who died in 2022. and several tens of thousands of francs, deposited in a blocked account until he turns 18. Except that Stéphanie has since rebuilt her life, and that this amount is taken into account in the calculation for the PCs of her entire new household. This, while she cannot in principle take the money inherited by her daughter. In short, “it’s up to my 12-year-old daughter to provide for the needs of her half-brothers and sisters!” laments the forty-year-old.
The shortfall is significant for the blended family which includes seven children: 1,163 francs per month as well as financial support linked to health insurance. Worse still, Stéphanie learned on Tuesday that the decision was retroactive: “We must therefore reimburse more than 30,000 francs received since the death of Léa’s dad. It’s filthy.”
Despite Stéphanie’s dismay, this decision appears to be in accordance with the law. With this inheritance, the family fortune is too great for her to claim the PC family. And, the fact that the money is in a blocked account, “does not prevent it from being taken into account in the calculation”, under articles 319 and 320 of the civil code, explains the Vaud Department of Health and Welfare. social action (DSAS). The mother can nevertheless contact the Justice of the Peace in order to assert her right to withdraw money for the maintenance of her daughter from the account in question.
Concerning the maintenance of non-heir brothers and sisters, here too, the DSAS affirms that this eventuality “can happen”, adding that a similar decision had, in the past, been validated by the Federal Court.
For Claudia Frick, lawyer at Protestant Social Center (CSP) Vaud, this elimination of the allowance for additional family benefits does not seem “at all fair”. And to elaborate: “Certainly, it is a truly exceptional situation and I do not have all the details. But it is not a child’s inheritance to support her half-brothers and sisters.” Claudia Frick is therefore convinced that “something could be done” if Stéphanie opposed the decision. A point of view shared by the mother, who decided to appeal.
