Having no relationship with a child can lead to the termination of child support. The Supreme Court clarifies this for us in recent Judgment 104/2019 of Feb. 19, 2019. Today we discuss a novel judgment from the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court (STS 104/2019 of February 19, rec. 1434/2018) that gives a new twist to family law and opens the door for the termination of support payments to adult children if it is demonstrated that there is no emotional or personal relationship and that this situation is attributable to the young adults. The Supreme Court admits the appeal for breach of doctrine regarding the cessation of the obligation to provide support to adult children and finds justified the need to establish jurisprudence on a legal issue posed by social reality. In the present case, the father of the two adult children initiated a procedure to modify measures requesting the termination of the child support for the two children for three reasons: - Due to a decrease in economic capacity - Due to lack of progress in the children's studies - Due to no personal relationship between the beneficiaries and the provider Although the Supreme Court, in this case, maintains the father's support obligation, it opens the possibility for the termination of support when there is no personal relationship between the children and the supporting parent. What then motivates the Supreme Court not to terminate the obligation to continue paying child support to the father despite evidence of this lack of relationship between the obliged father and children? The Supreme Court conditions the consideration of this cause and establishes that for the support to be terminated due to lack of relationship, it must be primarily attributable to the children, which is not considered proven in this case. In the words of the Court, "that lack of relationship is not attributable to the children, with the characterization of principal, relevant, and intense, as we have mentioned," and that, "if the interpretation, as already reiterated, must be restrictive and the proof rigorous, it cannot be appreciated that there is cause for termination of child support." The judgment explains that among the initiatives advocating the revision of inheritance law (and the duties and rights among family members, including economic ones), "one of them is aimed at extending and modernizing the legal cases of disinheritance of heirs, as modern family structures promote and even make it not strange, situations where parents have lost contact with some or all of their children." "Other times it is not so much the loss of contact, but rather frankly bad relationships between parent and child." "These tensions are not new, but today they may have increased, as there are often successive marriages, which lead to successive family units, with children from a previous relationship and others from a subsequent one, with interests not always uniform," the Court asserts. In any case, we remind you that in Family Law matters, there are no universal or automatic solutions, so it is necessary to attend to each specific case in detail to design the best way to defend your interests. Before making any decision, CONSULT US!!