Paris Living: How long can you wait ?

Selling a flat ? Why mentioning that a 88 years old lady is living there ? How is it linked to the low price ?

Some weeks ago I saw a similar ad in the newspaper and this week again. So I got curious and here is the background. It is called 'viager' in French, or according to Wikipedia reverse mortgage. There are some ethical questions linked to it, but first to the economic facts:

It is combining a low one-off payment with monthly-payments, as long as the seller lives (that's then the ethical part). Let's take the example from the ad:
- The flat could have a value of around 600'000 € and a buyer could get it with a one-off payment of almost 300'000 € (as usual: clever to ask for 295)
- But then: part of deal is, to pay a monthly rent of 4'500 € as long as the lady lives ! And this can sum up quickly: in 5.5 years another 300'000 €.
- If the lady is in good health and reaches the age of 100 years, the whole sum paid during 12 years is coming closer to 1 Mio € plus the fact of not yet being able to take over the flat.

Is it ethically correct to offer such deals ? A deal in which one person is benefitting that directly from a shorter life of an other person ? I don't know, a difficult topic. I can also understand the potential benefits from a seller side:
- What if an aged person wants to stay in his/her flat but doesn't have enough money available to cover all other costs around ? Usually banks don't grant mortgages any longer to aged persons.
- What if that person needs special and expensive care ? Why not go into such a construct instead of being forced to sell the own home ?

Not an easy topic ...