The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, announced this Monday that the Government will waive undue charges and administrative delays that the Catalan administration has been claiming after the death of people who received economic benefits for dependency, as well as in cases derived from changes in their economic situation or in the assessment of their degree of dependency.
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“This situation should never have happened,” the president stated because “claiming money from a person who has died seems like a bad taste joke” and that, he added, is what “has been happening in our home for decades.”
Exceptional waiver for undue payments in the dependency system
During an event after visiting, together with the Minister of Social Rights, Mònica Martínez Bravo, the Gent Gran de Gràcia residence and day center in Barcelona, Illa explained that the Generalitat claimed up to 10,665 debts in 2025 for undue payments or for benefits paid after death or after a change in the person’s situation: “Based on the existing regulations, it was considered undue and, therefore, had to be claimed from relatives.” Furthermore, he assured that in situations that are not simple, such as the recent death of a family member, this claim “makes no sense.”
Beyond the waiver, the design of benefits will be modified to prevent these undue payments from now on, and they will not be claimed in the future either when it is due to an administrative error, as has been happening, except in cases of bad faith.
The Administration will not claim the amounts paid to a family that had been collecting the benefit despite the death of their loved one. And, from now on, when the Administration detects that it has made more payments than due, it will adjust the amount from the following month, instead of regularizing previous periods.
If the dependent person dies before their case is resolved, the corresponding retroactive payment for the period they remained alive is made. In cases of death, until now, payment was only claimed for the days elapsed between the date of death and the update in the payroll system.
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Other situations in which these undue payments occurred and were subsequently claimed were, for example, in the downward revision of the corresponding benefit due to improvements in the family’s economic situation or in the degree of dependency.
This legislative initiative is part of the “Pla Cura”. This Plan will reduce waiting lists in the processing of dependency and improve its care. It includes 18 measures, among which the streamlining of economic benefits and the promotion of telematic assessments also stand out. In this regard, the president recalled that tomorrow, Tuesday, the Consell Executiu will approve “the most ambitious transformation of the dependency system since the law exists” with “the objective of integrating the dependency system with the health and primary care system.”
Sources from the Department of Social Rights have not specified the budgetary impact of the measure, although they have assured that the amount will be higher than the waiver made by the Government for undue payments of the guaranteed citizenship income and for former foster youth.
Illa also reviewed some of the main measures he announced this Sunday to improve the dependency system in Catalonia, and announced new measures such as the creation of an automatic minimum coverage benefit of between 100 and 200 euros depending on the degree, which will be received by all people who apply for dependency aid and request an assistance resource (residence, day center, etc.) between the resolution of the degree and while they wait to access it.
“The commitment is firm, to support and protect people financially from day one. From now on, all people who need dependency will receive an economic benefit within a maximum of two weeks from their assessment,” said Illa.
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