French Court Rejects MSA’s Claim Against Son for His Mother’s Social Security Debt in Morocco
More than two years after his mother died in Morocco, a man was asked by the MSA to repay €1,561.25 in benefits. He challenged the demand before the Tarbes court, which overturned the order to pay and rejected the agency’s claims.
His mother died in Morocco on April 8, 2022. At the time, she was repaying amounts she had wrongly received under the solidarity allowance for the elderly (ASPA). According to the Tarbes judicial court ruling, she had been notified that she owed a total of 9,104.08 euros and had made several payments between 2016 and her death.
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The MSA Midi-Pyrénées Sud nevertheless considered that a balance remained to be recovered. On July 11, 2024, it issued a payment order to her son for 1,561.25 euros, which was served on him on September 30 of that year. The man contested it, saying his mother had left no assets in her estate and that he himself received the disability allowance for adults.
When the case was heard on December 11, 2025, the agency reduced its claim to 520.42 euros. As the deceased had two other children, it was now seeking only one-third of the amount originally claimed from her son. The agency said it had initially sought the full amount from him because he had not provided the contact details of the other heirs.
The MSA fails to substantiate the balance it is claiming
The dispute also concerned the rules for recovering the money. The son argued that the claim was time-barred and that there were no estate assets from which the sums could be recovered. The MSA, for its part, cited provisions of the Civil Code concerning the repayment of amounts paid in error.
On the question of the time limit, the court ruled in the agency’s favor. The overpayment had been notified within the applicable time limit, and the mother had accepted the principle of repayment by making payments until her death.
That was not enough, however, to make her son pay. The judges applied the rules for recovering ASPA benefits from an estate, which cover the portion of net assets exceeding a threshold set in this ruling at 100,000 euros. They found that the law does not distinguish between benefits paid correctly and those received in error.
The agency also had to establish how much was actually still owed. But it produced no accounting documents to substantiate the 1,561.25 euros stated in the payment order, despite the many repayments the mother had made over several years.
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In its decision of February 19, 2026, the court therefore overturned the payment order in its entirety and rejected all of the MSA’s claims. The son does not have to pay the 520.42 euros still being sought at the hearing. The agency was ordered to pay the court costs.
