Social allowance repayment demands against heirs: the relevance of good faith

A repayment demand against an heir cannot be assessed solely by comparing payments with the applicable income limits. Good faith and the beneficiary’s legitimate reliance on the regularity of payments also matter in social assistance overpayment cases. These considerations underpin the Tribunal of Velletri’s judgment No. 245 of 30 January 2026.

The dispute concerned the Italian social allowance paid from 1 January 2017 to 30 November 2019. INPS calculated an original overpayment of €11,930.71 because the income limits had been exceeded. Its outstanding demand against the heir was €9,909.52, as €2,021.19 had already been recovered.

The Tribunal recalled that social assistance overpayments are subject to specific rules reflecting the purpose of the benefits and the protection of legitimate expectations. Repayment does not invariably follow from the general civil-law rule: responsibility for the undue payment and the recipient’s legitimate belief that it could be retained must be examined.

In this case, the repayment demand became known only in June 2024, after the beneficiary’s death and years after the payments. The judge relied on those circumstances in recognising the good faith of both beneficiary and heir and their legitimate expectations concerning the sums received.

The operative part declared the outstanding €9,909.52 irrecoverable. This must be distinguished from the original total: the judgment did not order reimbursement of the €2,021.19 already recovered. The protection granted followed from the particular circumstances, rather than a general prohibition on pursuing repayment claims against heirs.

View the court decision (PDF) ↗

https://studiolegalecelentano.com/en/news/inps-repayment-demand-notified-after-the-recipient-s-death