Dealing with family is quite complicated, and it can be especially hard when it comes to matters like money and property rights. French couple Yves, 85, and his 87-year-old wife adopted a little girl decades ago, and she is now evicting them from their home after decades of complications.
The couple, who is now disabled and facing homelessness, live in Perpignan, a region in the South of France. They lived selfless lives, and fostered 29 children over time, one of which they would adopt and become the child in this story. At the time Yves, was a film inspector, and his wife worked as a childcare worker for social services, which made them perfect for this caregiver role.
They lived in in Sarthe, a province about 120 miles southwest of Paris in a paid out home, and it seemed like life would just continue to cruise for the couple, until they ran into serious financial trouble and creditors began threatening to seize the home. In order to preserve it as inheritance for their daughter and not lose it to their debts, they decided to do a property transfer back in 1986.
How this French couple is ending up on the streets
The property transfer went smoothly, and the couple continued to live in their residence despite it not being in their name until 2002, when they decided to sell that house and relocate to Perpignan. After the first transfer, they had made a deal with their daughter that the property would be in her name and would pass to her as long as she allowed them to live there until their death, but when they moved and purchased their Perpignan residence, the agreement was not put on paper.
There was no legal agreement or contract signed that detailed the deal, not even a rental contract to protect both parties. Two decades later and the deal went south. The couple had been covering all the maintenance expenses and property taxes as per the verbal agreement, but with Yves’s wife bedridden for the past three years, Yves ill since 2017, the rise in cost of living and a very modest monthly pension of €1,800, making ends meet was no longer an option for the couple.
They soon went into debt again trying to cover expenses and could no longer afford to pay the tax bill on the property which was drawn directly out of their bank account. This left their daughter on the hook for the expense as the legal owner of the residence. Alleging that she could not afford the extra expense, she sued her parents in 2029, asking the courts to evict them so that the house could be sold and the debts settled.
COVID delayed a lot of the process, but in 2021 when the system had cleared some of the backlog, the court ruled in favor of Yves and his wife, stating that they were entitled to live in the house and would have to be compensated if forced to leave as per the verbal agreement that had been upheld for so long, giving it weight in court.
The court did not let the parents off the hook though, since the agreement entailed them covering all property expenses, they had to pay the €1,800 in outstanding property taxes and allow viewings of the home for potential sale.
Had they left it there, the situation would have been solved, but they appealed the decision and are now once again facing homelessness. They lost the appeal in March and were given two months to pack their things and vacate the property. This situation is heartbreaking all around, especially considering the age of the couple.
They are making a last effort to save their home by filing a petition to revoke the donation of the property on the grounds of “ingratitude” while at the same time securing a mortgage guarantee.