Provided unpaid care for your parent: can you receive compensation from the estate?

1. A claim for compensation alongside your position as an heir

Article 4:36 of the Dutch Civil Code offers certain family members the possibility of equitable compensation for work they performed as adults in the deceased's household, profession or business without payment or for insufficient payment. The provision covers children, stepchildren, foster children, children-in-law and grandchildren. You do not necessarily have to be an heir. This is an independent entitlement, rather than an automatic increase in your share of the inheritance. See Article 4:36 of the Dutch Civil Code.

Therefore, make clear what you are asking for during the first discussion about the estate. Do you want recognition for the care you provided, reimbursement for groceries you paid for, payment of agreed wages or a lump sum? These are different questions. An overview listing these items separately makes discussions with the other heirs more concrete and prevents the same expense or work from being claimed twice.

2. Informal care does not automatically become paid work retrospectively

Not every visit, car journey or difficult period leads to compensation. On 12 August 2026, the North Holland District Court emphasised that specific conditions apply to such a claim. Its assessment considered long-term work with economic value, the absence of appropriate remuneration and a less favourable social or financial position compared with the other heirs. This is a judicial application of the law to specific circumstances, rather than a general hourly rate for informal care. See paragraph 4.16 of the judgment.

When preparing your case, it helps to replace general descriptions with verifiable tasks. For example, record who prepared meals each day, who provided personal care and what professional assistance was also available. Also describe what you gave up: paid working hours, education you postponed or other demonstrable consequences. Avoid retrospectively counting an entire day as working time simply because you were available.

3. Build a file that someone else can also verify

Create a timeline showing start and end dates, changes in care needs and the division of tasks. Keep existing diaries, messages, work schedules and arrangements with home care providers. When reconstructing events afterwards, be honest about the basis for your estimates. A regular daily task can be substantiated differently from occasional assistance for which hardly any records exist.

Ask potential witnesses what they personally observed, without telling them what you want their statement to say. A neighbour who saw meals being delivered every day can confirm something different from a relative who only heard that providing care was demanding. Also share medical information selectively: for an initial assessment, an overview of care needs is often more useful than an unsorted, complete medical file. These are practical suggestions for compiling a file, rather than a statutory list of required evidence.

• Describe tasks, periods and frequency separately.
• Show which work was performed by others.
• Where possible, substantiate the consequences for your paid work using existing documents.
• Identify estimates made retrospectively as estimates.

4. Benefits received form part of the same assessment

A reasonable calculation also considers what you have already received. The parliamentary explanatory material mentions, among other things, the nature, duration and extent of the work, the usual level of remuneration, and board and lodging. Other benefits may also be relevant. This explanatory material uses older article numbers and explains the background to the current provisions; it is not new legislation. See Parliamentary Paper 17141, number 27.

A decision by the 's-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal dated 21 April 2022 shows that benefits can indeed determine the outcome. The court rejected the claim because the benefits taken into account already exceeded the potential compensation. See the final decision. Therefore, include rent-free accommodation, payments and favourable arrangements in your overview as well. Explain why you believe a benefit is or is not connected with the work performed.

5. Asserting the entitlement, payment and limitation involve different points in time

Under Article 4:37 of the Dutch Civil Code, you must declare that you wish to receive the lump sum no later than nine months after the death. An interested party may set a shorter, reasonable time limit. The claim does not become due for payment until six months after the death. In addition, a limitation period of one year after the death applies in principle. For an entitlement under Article 4:36, where there is a surviving spouse, a special extension applies until one year after that spouse's death. See Article 4:37 of the Dutch Civil Code.

Have these points in time assessed separately. A dispute about the amount is no reason to delay notifying the relevant parties of your claim. Nor does sending a letter necessarily prove that it reached the correct recipient in time. In proceedings from 2021, the 's-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal specifically considered receipt and the capacity in which individuals had been approached. See the interim decision of 20 May 2021.

6. A fictional example: care hours and rent-free accommodation

Fictional example: Noor reduces her paid working hours to care for her father almost every day for two years. She cooks, helps him wash and accompanies him to medical appointments. During this period, her father allows her to live rent-free in a separate home. After his death, Noor requests compensation. Her brother believes that the rent-free accommodation already compensated her for the care.

Useful preparation here consists of two separate overviews. The first describes Noor's work and the consequences for her employment. The second describes the housing arrangement, payments and other benefits. Multiplying hours by a chosen rate does not, by itself, resolve the dispute. Equally, simply pointing out that Noor lived rent-free does not settle everything. The parties must explain what they are comparing and which information is missing. This example does not predict an outcome.

7. What distinguishes this compensation from other claims

Keep expenses you paid separate from the value of your own work. A bank statement showing an energy bill you paid establishes that you spent money, but does not yet explain why your parent was responsible for that expense. Therefore, also keep the related agreement or correspondence. If there is a care agreement, employment contract or another payment arrangement, have it examined separately.

Rent-free accommodation may also form part of a broader family arrangement. In 2020, for example, the Central Netherlands District Court provisionally discussed whether accommodation could be treated as being provided in exchange for informal care. This was an interlocutory procedural judgment in which the parties were still allowed to respond; it therefore did not establish a definitive general rule. See paragraphs 2.8 and 2.9 of the judgment. Our practical conclusion is that you should reconstruct the entire arrangement before presenting one part of it as a debt.

8. Exceptions and limits require a separate check

The statutory provisions impose a combined upper limit: the lump sums may total no more than half the value of the estate calculated under Article 4:37. This is a ceiling, rather than a standard amount of compensation. A will cannot simply exclude the statutory provisions; Article 4:41 prohibits departing from them by a testamentary disposition. See Book 4, the section on other statutory rights.

The family relationship and the way the work was organised remain separate points to consider. Do not draw conclusions from a similar family history without checking exactly for whom the work was performed. Work within a business, for example, requires the relevant business records. For work performed longer ago, it is also necessary to establish which periods and circumstances are legally relevant. Defining the scope precisely can prevent unnecessary investigation into years that have no bearing on the claim.

9. Discuss the claim before signing final agreements

Explain your request in a factual manner and give the other heirs an opportunity to respond to the specific items. Ask them to identify which tasks, periods or benefits they dispute. This reveals whether the disagreement concerns the facts, the valuation or the legal basis. A conversation about mutual disappointment may be necessary, but it does not replace this assessment.

Before entering into a final agreement on the division of the estate or granting a full and final discharge, have someone check how your potential claim is addressed. If a time limit is at risk of expiring or a claim is strongly contested, targeted advice from a Dutch inheritance lawyer is useful. Disputes about these provisions may be submitted to the subdistrict court on application, as Article 4:34(4) provides. Bring an organised file to an initial consultation; this helps identify precisely which information is still missing.

• Have the applicable time limits assessed first.
• Consider the work performed alongside the benefits received.
• Separate your own work from expenses paid on someone else's behalf and contractual payments.
• Check how the claim is addressed in any settlement.