So, now a single-family house owner has been admitted to the hospital, the acute medical treatment is completed, discharge from the hospital is imminent, but self-care must be denied. Then a social nurse for care transition always comes into play. She first clarifies, are there reachable relatives: no or not available; is the need for care temporary: if a nursing home instead of outpatient nursing service, then apparently no. It continues in the nursing home: treatments must now be carried out here, some of which would otherwise be punishable bodily injuries without the affected person's consent. If he is no longer clearly sane and/or able to articulate enough to express his own position on this, a guardianship judge is involved. He looks: is there a living will, who should act as guardian? - no, then he must appoint a guardian ex officio. The guardian has to clarify: is there any asset to pay the nursing home costs as a self-payer (because in all care levels the nursing home costs are such that the nursing care insurance alone does not fully cover them). If there are maintenance-obligated relatives, the social welfare office recovers the advanced nursing home cost co-payments from them. If not, the guardian has no choice but to liquidate the assets. Of course, starting with the savings books and stocks. Such a guardian often has dozens of wards. So he does not go into the house: neither to fetch the stamp collection nor to empty the mailbox. Not even to turn off the gas valve - if the house explodes, the fire department will surely show up. Also, clearing and salting duties are regularly neglected in such cases. The guardian only properly registers the ward's residence at the registration office to the nursing home. Authorities then write to the nursing home - postcards from Cousin Emmi are received by the resident himself, official mail by the guardian. The child’s drawing from the potential house buyers will rot in the mailbox with the coffee trip invitations. If the guardian concludes that the house must be liquidated to cover costs, as far as I know, no specific procedure is prescribed for this. Prescribing the effort of an auction procedure would probably be disproportionate. But the guardianship court does check that he does not half-gift it to his brother-in-law. By phone, the legal assistant can already tell you that a nursing home resident who came under guardianship in October with a last name starting with R will be in the care of Mathilde X if the living will says nothing else. These are merciless automatisms - people, make your living wills!