A patient with coronavirus at a hospital in Barcelona, in an image from August 2021. Photo: REUTERS
Antonio was encouraged to tell his story, from the background, on one of the most -watched news programs in Spain: “I have three children. I saw it or not. In confinement they are completely gone.
“The law speaks of inheritance to children, but it doesn’t take into account what kind of children they are,” Antonio laments. “(That they inherited me) is something I want to avoid,” he said.
Your testimony adds to the anguish of many elderly Spaniards who, during the pandemic, felt abandoned by their loved ones.
And that feeling is starting to translate a new social phenomenon: that of men and women who want to alienate their grandchildren because they think they don’t take care of them.
Despite the coronavirus, the population over 65 years of age, the most vulnerable to Covid-19, will grow between 2020 and 2021 in Spain.
aging population
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, on January 1, 2020, the year the pandemic began in Europe, there were 9,218,381 people over the age of 65. On the same date in 2021, there were nearly 90,000 more: there were 9,307 .511 aged 65 and older.
A room for patients with Covid, at a hospital in Catalonia, Spain, in an image from April 2020. Photo: AFP
“No one claims in court or criticizes their children saying: ‘You have to take care of me.’ But every time we receive more questions from people expressing their desire not to leave their assets to their heirs because they feel they have been abandoned, ”he commented. Clarion Marcelo Cornellá, president of the Cultural Association of the Elderly of Fuenlabrada (ACUMAFU), a municipality in the Community of Madrid 40 kilometers from the center of the capital.
“It is not enough to carry a last name – added Cornellá-. The concept of family is closeness, mutual help. When there is a long -term absence between parents and children, it stops being a family. “
Thousands of questions
Since the pandemic began two years ago, ACUMAFU has received approximately 4,000 queries this topic. The association offers free advice. “We advise our seniors for free on the agreements we have with law firms,” Cornellá said.
“The law governing Spanish civil law is included in the Code of 1889. According to this Civil Code, a person has no freedom not to leave any of their children because there is something called‘ the legitimate ’, which it is the obligation to leave two-thirds of the inheritance to the children ”, explained the president of the association who started a campaign on the online petition platform change.org to promote the update of the Spanish Civil Code.
A coronavirus patient communicates via video call with relatives, from a hospital in Barcelona, in November 2020. Photo: AP
Navarra is the only autonomous community where its inhabitants have no obligation to leave a third of their assets to their heirs. In other parts of Spain, yes.
The Supreme Court of Spain has created jurisprudence in some cases where it has ruled in favor of the person who refuses to leave his inheritance to his children. The law considers food deprivation to the father or mother and severe physical or verbal abuse.
psychological abuse
“It’s hard to prove psychological harm, but we point out that psychological abuse can be blamed and the long-term disappearance of children of at least four years can be justified. If you don’t want to know about him, why? do you want to know about their money? ” said Cornellá.
“If they don’t take care of you, don’t inherit”, is the purpose of the ACUMAFU petition to collect signatures online.
“We already have more than 3,000 but because the protagonists in this story, almost all of them, are adults, many have already signed the paper and we have not yet uploaded all those signatures on the web”, clarified the president of the association.
The petition states: “At present, the Spanish Civil Code does not allow for freedom of will. By law, and not at all, autonomous communities, because of having ‘legitimate’, two-thirds of the inherited wealth is allocated by law for children, and in case there are no descendants, half of the inheritance is equal. of the parents of the deceased.
“This outdated and outdated regulation lacks any foundation -the petition affirms -. It contradicts the Constitution, on fundamental rights such as equality, liberty and private property.”
And he stressed: “There is no ‘right’ to receive other people’s property according to law, against their will. We claim the right to freely make a will ”.
“We see that young people today are alive a generational estrangement and they distance themselves from all family stereotypes. They ignore their seniors and caring for the elderly is, for a part of the population, an old commandment ”, Cornellá analyzes.
“Perhaps the education we give our children and the idea that everyone is making his or her own life means that we don’t include them in family life and the detachment ends up in an abandonment that becomes stable,” he added. niya.
Madrid. Correspondent
CB
Source: Clarin
