Your adult son neither studies nor works: ending his maintenance

The case, in five lines

What is brought

A claim to modify final measures under article 775 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil (the Civil Procedure Act) seeking a declaration that the adult son's maintenance is extinguished on grounds 3, 4 or 5 of article 152 of the Código Civil, with an alternative application for a reduction or a time limit.

Before which court

The sección de familia del Tribunal de Instancia (the family section of the first-instance court) that gave the judgment setting the maintenance (the sección civil, the civil section, where there is no family section), through the juicio verbal route with the rules of article 770 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil. Before that, an appropriate dispute resolution method must be attempted: it is a condition of admissibility under article 5 of Ley Orgánica 1/2025.

Deadline

There is no lapse or limitation period: the action may be brought while the maintenance is in force and the ground exists. The clock that runs is a different one: as a rule, extinction takes effect from the decision declaring it, and at most from the claim if that is requested and justified; until then every instalment is owed in full. Once served, the other parent has twenty days to file a written defence (article 753 of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil).

Who can bring it

The paying parent brings the claim. Article 775 gives standing in all cases to the spouses, so the claim is brought against the other parent, who receives the maintenance under article 93 of the Código Civil. The claim is brought against that parent alone and not against the son, even though he is the real beneficiary of the maintenance: the adult son has no standing to be sued in these proceedings. His evidence, the best in the case, is obtained by calling him as a witness.

Financial risk

If it is not proven that the son's situation is his own doing, the claim is dismissed, the maintenance stays intact and costs may be awarded, although in family cases they are not always imposed. What must never be risked is stopping payment in the meantime: enforcement with seizure and, after two consecutive or four separate months, the offence in article 227 of the Código Penal (the Criminal Code).

Turning eighteen does not extinguish the maintenance

Coming of age ends nothing by itself. Article 93 of the Código Civil directs the judge, where adult or emancipated children without income of their own live in the family home, to set in the same decision the maintenance owed to them under articles 142 and following. The maintenance you pay your twenty three year old son is as alive as on the day of the judgment, and nothing changes until another decision declares it extinguished.

What does change at eighteen is its basis. While the child is a minor, the obligation arises from parental authority and the Tribunal Supremo (the Supreme Court) treats it as a practically unconditional duty. Once he is an adult, it is governed by the rules on maintenance between relatives, which depend on real need and on that need not being his fault. Article 142 says it plainly: the education of the person maintained is included after coming of age only where his training has not been completed for a reason not attributable to him.

That nuance opens the door, but you need to know where it stays shut. If your son has a disability or a documented health problem that explains why he neither studies nor works, the courts do not attribute that situation to him, and an adult child with a disability receives protection very close to that of a minor. That explanation must be ruled out before suing, because it is the first the other side will raise and the one that most often sinks these cases when nobody saw it coming.

Neither studying nor working: the ground that really wins

Article 152 of the Código Civil lists when the duty to provide maintenance ceases, and two of its grounds matter here. Ground 3, where the person maintained can practise a trade, profession or business, or has improved his fortune, so that the maintenance is no longer necessary for his subsistence. Ground 5, where the person maintained is a descendant of the payer and his need stems from bad conduct or lack of application to work, for as long as that cause persists.

Ground 3 rarely wins on its own. The courts require a real and concrete possibility of working, not a theoretical capacity, and with the youth unemployment Spain has, a twenty year old without training is not regarded as self sufficient merely because he could work. Ground 5 is the one that decides: the Tribunal Supremo has declared extinguished the maintenance of adult children who, being able to, neither studied with any progress nor looked for work, because that sustained passivity is exactly the lack of application the provision describes.

Two nuances almost nobody mentions. First: it is not age that is judged but the track record; a twenty six year old making genuine progress in a degree may keep the maintenance, and a twenty one year old who has gone three years without enrolling or seeking work may lose it. Second: extinction for lack of application lasts while that cause persists, under article 152.5 itself, so if the son seriously resumes his training he may claim maintenance again. The judgment responds to conduct; it does not impose a lifelong penalty.

If your son has cut you off: the disinheritance route

Ground 4 of article 152 extinguishes maintenance where the person maintained, whether or not a forced heir, has committed one of the faults that give rise to disinheritance. Among the just grounds for disinheriting children, article 853 includes having physically mistreated or gravely insulted the parent. The Tribunal Supremo, which had already brought psychological mistreatment within physical mistreatment when interpreting disinheritance, carried that criterion over to maintenance: a manifest and continuous absence of relationship can extinguish the maintenance.

The requirement is demanding and must be understood before it is pleaded. The absence of relationship must be manifest, continuous and, above all, attributable principally and significantly to the son. If the rift arose from the conflict between the parents, from a divorce that left the son caught in the middle, or from your ceasing to exercise contact when he was a minor, the court will not attribute it to him. Teenage distance, or a few months of silence after an argument, are not enough either.

That is why this ground works better as reinforcement than as the only argument. Where it carries weight is alongside lack of application: a son who neither studies nor works and who, in addition, has refused all contact for years with the person supporting him. In Catalonia, the Catalan Civil Code expressly makes the manifest and continuous absence of relationship attributable to the person maintained a ground for extinction, and in Aragón or Navarra civil residence status may change the applicable rule. Excluding him from your estate is a separate matter, with its own will and its own evidence.

Before suing: negotiate, and know whom to sue

Since April 2025 you cannot go straight to court. Article 5 of Ley Orgánica 1/2025 requires, as a condition of admissibility, prior recourse to an appropriate dispute resolution method in all declaratory proceedings in book II and in the special proceedings in book IV of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil. Modification of measures is one of those special proceedings, and none of the exceptions in paragraph 2, designed among other things for fundamental rights, article 158 measures, filiation or child abduction, reaches the maintenance of an adult son.

The requirement is met by direct negotiation between the parties or their lawyers, a confidential binding offer, conciliation or mediation, provided the subject negotiated matches that of the lawsuit. In practice we do it in writing, addressed to both the other parent and the son himself, with a concrete proposal: an end date, a stepped reduction, or one last year paid in exchange for enrolment and grades. Some of these cases close there, and those that do not reach the court with the negotiation on record.

The claim is filed before the Tribunal de Instancia that ordered the measures, as article 775 requires, and proceeds as a juicio verbal with the rules of article 770 and a written defence within twenty days. Article 775 gives standing in all cases to the spouses, so the only defendant is the other parent, who collects the maintenance under article 93. Although your son is the real beneficiary, the Tribunal Supremo has held that this claim is brought against the parent who was receiving the maintenance and not against the children: the adult son is not a party to these proceedings, and suing him as well would only open a dispute over his lack of standing instead of the merits.

The evidence that decides: your son's track record, documented

These cases are not won on the father's conviction but on the son's chronology: what he enrolled in each year since the judgment, what he passed, when he dropped out, what days he has paid contributions and whether he is registered as a job seeker. Much of that information is out of your reach, because your son is an adult and neither the school nor Social Security will give it to you. It is requested in the claim as evidence, so that the court itself orders it from the school or university, from the Tesorería General de la Seguridad Social (the social security treasury) and from the public employment service.

The son's examination as a witness is usually the decisive moment. He is asked what he did each academic year, what jobs he looked for, what he does on any given Tuesday. He is the one who holds the facts of his own life, and the court weighs that ease of proof: if he claims to be studying, he must prove it with enrolment and attendance, not with a September registration abandoned in October. What he posts on social media, with its date and link, completes the picture where it contradicts the story of enforced idleness.

For the absence of relationship, the evidence is of your attempts, not of your hurt: messages sent and unanswered, birthday greetings returned, burofax letters proposing to meet, and your own compliance with the contact arrangement while your son was a minor. That last point weighs heavily, because it is what allows the court to conclude that the rift is the son's doing and not the father's. And the judgment that set the maintenance must always be filed, to show that today's situation is not the one taken into account at the time.

Until judgment you pay: effects, arrears and the criminal route

The general rules on modifying measures apply here in the same way; what is specific to this case is the temptation to act first. Maintenance remains owed in full until a decision extinguishes it. Stopping payment because your son does not study exposes you to enforcement with seizure and, from two consecutive or four non consecutive unpaid instalments, to the offence in article 227 of the Código Penal, which also protects maintenance set in favour of adult children. Believing that the son no longer deserves it is no defence: what is punished is failing to pay what a judicial decision set.

The general rule of the Tribunal Supremo is that the decision modifying or extinguishing maintenance takes effect from the date it is given and not retrospectively, and that what was paid in the meantime is not refunded. The Supreme Court itself has qualified that rule where extinction rests on the son's independence: where the ground already existed when the claim was filed and the other side kept the maintenance going in bad faith, it has set the effects at the date of the claim. It has also ordered repayment of what was collected without cause, but in a separate action for unjust enrichment, not in the modification proceedings. That is why this claim must expressly ask for effects from the date it is filed, and why waiting is a mistake.

What the judgment does not say cannot be fixed later. The Tribunal Constitucional (the Constitutional Court) upheld the appeal of a mother whom an Audiencia Provincial (the provincial court of appeal) had refused, on grounds of abuse of rights, enforcement of the instalments prior to the extinction judgment even though the son had been working for years: a final decision is enforced on its own terms. So as not to carry the maintenance throughout the case, article 775.3 allows provisional modification to be sought in the claim, and it is wise to ask, as an alternative to extinction, for a reduction or a time limit that avoids an all or nothing outcome.

How we run the case, step by step

1. 1

   Rebuilding the son's track record since the judgment

   We read the judgment that set the maintenance and build, year by year, a picture of what your son was studying then and what he has done since: enrolments, drop outs, jobs and contact with you. That chronology decides whether the ground is 152.5, 152.4 or neither, and whether a health problem must first be ruled out.

2. 2

   Securing the evidence within your reach

   We keep the receipts for every payment, the unanswered messages, what the son posts and the evidence of how you complied with contact. What is beyond your reach, such as the son's academic record or employment history, is prepared so that the court can order it.

3. 3

   Prior negotiation with the other parent and the son

   We send both of them a concrete written proposal, with an end date or a stepped reduction, which satisfies the requirement in article 5 of Ley Orgánica 1/2025. If there is agreement, it is submitted for court approval; if not, the negotiation is on record for the claim.

4. 4

   Modification claim with tiered requests

   Before the Tribunal de Instancia that gave the judgment we seek extinction with effect from the claim and, in the alternative, a reduction or time limit, together with the provisional modification of article 775.3 where the ground is clear. Meanwhile, you keep paying.

5. 5

   Defence, court ordered evidence and hearing

   The defence arrives within twenty days. We ask the court to order the son's academic, employment and job seeking records, we prepare his examination and the witnesses on the relationship, and at the hearing, once the evidence has been taken, closing submissions are made orally.

6. 6

   Judgment, appeal and the end of payments

   Payments stop only with the judgment, and from the date it sets. An appeal lies to the Audiencia Provincial within twenty days and, as a rule, the appeal does not suspend the effect of the measures ordered in a family judgment.

The law that applies

• Art. 93 CC. Requires the judge to determine each parent's contribution to maintenance and, where adult or emancipated children without income of their own live in the family home, to set in the same decision the maintenance owed to them under articles 142 and following. BOE-A-1889-4763
• Art. 142 CC. Defines maintenance as everything indispensable for sustenance, housing, clothing and medical care, and includes the education and instruction of the person maintained while a minor and even afterwards where his training has not been completed for a reason not attributable to him. BOE-A-1889-4763
• Art. 152 CC. Lists the grounds on which the maintenance obligation ceases, among them that the person maintained can practise a trade, profession or business so that the maintenance is no longer necessary (3), that he has committed one of the faults giving rise to disinheritance (4) and that, being a descendant of the payer, his need stems from bad conduct or lack of application to work, for as long as that cause persists (5). BOE-A-1889-4763
• Art. 853 CC. Adds to the grounds in article 756 under numbers 2, 3, 5 and 6 two just grounds for disinheriting children and descendants: having refused maintenance without legitimate reason to the ascendant who disinherits, and having physically mistreated or gravely insulted him. BOE-A-1889-4763
• Art. 775 LEC. Allows the public prosecutor, where there are minor children or children with disabilities whose support measures are entrusted to their parents, and in all cases the spouses, to ask the court that ordered the final measures to modify them where the circumstances taken into account have substantially changed; the application follows article 770 and provisional modification may be sought in the claim or the defence. BOE-A-2000-323
• Art. 753 LEC. Unless expressly provided otherwise, the proceedings in title I of book IV follow the juicio verbal route, with the other parties summoned to file a written defence within twenty days and oral closing submissions once the evidence has been taken. BOE-A-2000-323
• Art. 5 LO 1/2025. In civil matters, prior recourse to an appropriate dispute resolution method on the same subject is a condition of admissibility in declaratory proceedings under book II and special proceedings under book IV of the Ley de Enjuiciamiento Civil, except for the matters excluded in paragraph 2; it is also met by direct negotiation between the parties or their lawyers. BOE-A-2025-76
• Art. 227 CP. Punishes with three months to one year in prison, or a fine of six to twenty four months, anyone who fails to pay for two consecutive or four non consecutive months any financial provision in favour of a spouse or children set in a court approved agreement or judicial decision, and provides that reparation of the harm always includes payment of the sums owed. BOE-A-1995-25444

Each article checked against the consolidated text published in the BOE (the Spanish official gazette).

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