If you’re not going to come and live or work here and sure that your future is in the UK then I agree with Véro and David, “cut and run”. Brexit could actually do you a favour as far as the French authorities trying to claw back ehpad expenses! 
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If no one comes forward to pay, and the French state can’t extract the money out of you, by hook or by crook, then it will come out of whatever is left of your MiL’s estate when she eventually dies. In the meantime, the state will cover the expenses.
It will be quite complicated for the French state to get an enforcible order on your husband to pay anything at all, especially with the current run up to Brexit and thereafter (judicial cooperation and all that). The issue then being that coming back to France for a visit or short stay might see any of your property impounded on French soil pending debt collection (car, caravan, motorhome etc, assuming you own it), but that would require a level of awareness that the French authorities don’t necessarily currently have (not to say they won’t get it, in time). The boot would be on the other foot though, if your husband owns property in France, as the state can and will use that against non-Doms as collateral. Again, all such scenarios require a degree of organisation on the part of the collector, which as Véronique has explained, in civil and family matters, is far from simple, but not impossible.
By property, it should be understood any movable or immovable assets, including bank accounts, that your husband might have in France.
Just as an addenda, as I keep having afterthoughts, if your husband is really concerned about what his legal position might be and how best to mitigate any untoward effects, then he needs to get in touch with a family lawyer based in France, or one in the UK with sufficient expertise of French family law.
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Thank you, it’s all just a big worry as there is no way we could afford that sort of money, and there is no estate to help pay back at the end. I just want to make sure there is no way we could legally be in trouble, as an only child it is hard to afford that sort of money.
Thank you Alex.
My husband left France over 30 years ago and has no property or bank accounts in France, it is not that we don’t want to pay, it’s just we can’t afford €1300 a month!
There is no estate for the state to recover the costs. I think we should maybe contact a solicitor just to get some advice.
Thank you for replying.
As long as you don’t intend to live in France and can square it with your conscience you should be OK.
I still think your husband would be better off talking to a notaire. I say your husband because it is his mother and he is presumably still French.
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The can’t enforce any payments over borders?
Thank you, for replying.
We have offered to pay some money towards the costs, but this was rejected. We can’t afford the full amount as we do not have the money, it’s €1300 extra a month, it would leave us having to sell our house in the UK.
Be thankful it’s only 1300€. Many care homes are more like double that, let alone nursing homes!
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Charlotte, I feel for you both but can only repeat what I/we have already advised: get your husband to seek professional/legal advice from a French lawyer/notaire or someone similar as to whether he can simply walk away without being chased 
This option, the cheapest, would of course mean you cutting ties with France too (not coming here).
Courage !
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Hi Jane
The €1300 is what we would have to pay, not the total cost for the home, and as an only child with no-one to share the cost with this would actually break us.
You might find this article of interest:
http://leparticulier.lefigaro.fr/jcms/c_46717/les-obligations-d-un-enfant-a-l-egard-de-ses-parents#:~:text=La%20loi%20n’oblige%20pas%20un%20parent%20qui%20a%20plusieurs,un%20seul%20de%20ses%20enfants.
And this further article:
https://aivi.org/vous-informer/justice/vos-droits/2394-quelles-sont-les-obligations-legales-d-un-enfant-envers-ses-parents-en-difficulte-financiere.html
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The issue seems to be France’s procedure which is intimidating I agree but it is designed to be fair… You say your husband has applied to the state for help but I am not sure what process he followed. The normal process as I understand it is for a judge to fix the amount. When you say “we have to object or go before a judge” I wonder if you have misunderstood the role of the judge here. It is nothing like going to court, you are not on trial and the judge is not judging you. A better
word might be, arbitrator. You would meet him in his office and show him
your household accounts so that he understands your financial situation
and your commitments and responsibilities. He would then decide what is a
fair contribution for you to make. He would absolutely not expect you to
sell your house.
A formal system with a judge setting a fair rate that people can pay is
necessary because while you are a decent person and you have offered to
contribute what you can, not everybody would contribute voluntarily even
if they are rolling in money.
One of my former colleagues went through this when his mother developed
Alzheimers. He seemed to feel the amount he had to contribute was fair. He
had less to spend on holidays and luxuries but it did not change his
lifestyle significantly.
The problem for you of course is that it would mean travelling to France
and at present this is an extra problem. I do not know if in the
circumstances a judge would do his job remotely.
At the end of the day the judge is not going to tell you to pay the full
amount if you can not afford it. If you then choose not to pay the amount
fixed by the judge, it would be a smaller issue than choosing not to pay
the full amount if you see what I mean. If France does chase you at all,
it would be chasing you for a smaller figure, and is less likely to pursue
it.
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My thoughts exactly. At present, I am not entirely sure which organisation is putting pressure on the OP’s husband to cough up, so to speak. Care home ? Conseil départemental / régional via social services (as they are responsible for the financial awards given to care homes) ? From what the OP has stated, the JAF (juge aux affaires familiales) doesn’t appear to have been involved yet, but that person is indeed the ultimate arbiter of such disputes.
I would add that carehome managers are used to putting pressure directly on families to cough up more without going through the courts because they know that the courts are overloaded with all kinds of family law requests, and as a result orders/awards of court can take a long time to be processed, especially if it has to go through a significant hierarchy of decision making for a court action to be taken.
So the laws say that you have to take care of your parents? Are the no exemptions ? I have French friend that had her mom walk out of the family when she was 9 do she really have pay for some one that was newer there for her growing up they are allot of bad parents in the world that don’t care about the kids why should they have to pay for ther bad parents
I agree totally on getting advice from a French solicitor a.s.a.p., even though the UK has left the EU I believe within the WA is the ability for ‘cross border’ arrangements to continue so a French court could transfer the case to UK court quite easily if things got that far.
The links I posted indicate some of the reasons that might be invoked to justify why a judge should reduce or remove the obligation to contribute to the parent’s upkeep. One of those reasons is abandonment of the child.
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