Elderly Spaniards disinherit their children after being abandoned to lonely lockdowns

The elderly have been particularly vulnerable across the world due to coronavirus lockdowns

Credit: PA

Thousands of elderly Spaniards are taking the vengeful step of disinheriting their children if they have shown no regard for their well-being during lockdown. 

According to Spanish support networks for the elderly, many older people have been so heartbroken by the lack of contact from relatives during the pandemic that they are seeking advice on how to cut them out of their will. 

“Our motto is ‘if they don’t look after you, don’t leave them anything’,” Marcel Cornellá, who runs an association for the elderly in the Madrid suburb of Fuenlabrada, told the Sunday Telegraph. 

Mr Cornellá said he has been receiving 220 calls a month from elderly people asking for advice on how to disinherit a child or children, five times more than pre-pandemic levels.

“Typically, this is a problem that was already there and now it has come to the surface as people suffer confinement and health problems,” said Mr Cornellá, citing the example of an 81-year-old widow who had no contact from her daughter for 18 months despite suffering from terminal cancer. 

“This law of forced inheritance is from the time of horse and carts, and has nothing to do with today’s world. People should be free to choose what they wish to do with their property," he added.

In Spain only Navarre and the Basque Country regions make it easy for parents to disinherit offspring. Elsewhere, the law says that parents must demonstrate cause for doing so, such as physical abuse.

“Fortunately, judges are interpreting the law more kindly, and we have rulings now where the psychological suffering caused by a complete lack of contact is being equated to mistreatment,” said Madrid lawyer Francisco Rubiales.

“With Covid this problem has exploded. I am getting up to 500 calls a month, but less than 10 per cent go through with the whole process,” Mr Rubiales added.

When a case goes to court, judges tend to ask for the two sides to show photographs from their mobile phones of key dates such as Christmas to establish whether there has been any family contact.

Conrado Alegre, a 64-year-old former factory worker in early retirement due to ill health, is determined to launch the legal process to cut off his two daughters, whom he has only seen in court in the past 20 years after a fractious divorce and a series of disputes over finances.

“I don’t consider them my daughters anymore. The last thing I want in this world is for them to enjoy a single cent of what I have earned. They caused me more pain than anyone else, and even sadder is the fact that my parents lost the only grandchildren they had," he said.