A father must keep paying child support for his two adult daughters after judges found evidence that he blocked their messages on mobile phones.
The Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands rejected an appeal by the father, upholding a family court ruling that requires him to maintain monthly maintenance payments of 300 euros for the two women, who are now aged 20 and 23.
The man had petitioned the judiciary to cancel the maintenance payments, claiming he had not seen his daughters since 2019 and alleging that they were exclusively responsible for cutting all ties. He further argued that because both daughters had reached adulthood and were either finishing their studies or had already completed them, they were capable of entering the labour market to provide for themselves.
The mother challenged the application in court, arguing that neither daughter was economically self-sufficient and that both still required parental financial support. She presented records from messaging services to demonstrate that the breakdown in contact was not driven solely by the young women.
WhatsApp Messages Presented in Court
According to court reporting published by Menorca.info, one of the daughters had made several attempts to contact her father by sending him digital messages, none of which received a response.
Legal counsel representing the mother showed the court that data within the WhatsApp application indicated the father was not receiving the messages. The undelivered status of the communications pointed to the father having blocked his daughter on the platform rather than the daughter refusing to communicate.
Judges examined the messaging logs alongside broader family evidence. While the court noted that a blocked number alone does not reveal the entire history of a broken relationship, it emphasized that the father failed to show any evidence of attempting to communicate with his daughters over the preceding five or six years.
The court found that the father had made no telephone calls, sent no letters, and made no effort to reach out through other channels. The ruling highlighted that he had not contacted either daughter on their birthdays or during holiday periods throughout the years of estrangement.
During the court proceedings, both daughters testified that they did not wish to re-establish contact with their father. However, the magistrates observed that the young women maintained close and affectionate relationships with other relatives on their father's side of the family. That ongoing contact weighed heavily with the judges, undermining the father's assertion that the daughters harboured a blanket rejection of his family.
Legal Standards for Ending Child Support
The financial obligation dates back to 2015, when the couple divorced and the court established a monthly child support sum of 300 euros for the daughters. In the years following the divorce, the formal visitation schedule lapsed, and family meetings were left to informal arrangements agreed between the father and his daughters until direct contact ceased altogether.
Under Spanish family law, child maintenance does not automatically terminate when a child reaches the age of 18. Parents remain legally obligated to support adult offspring who lack financial independence, provided they are continuing their education or professional training in good faith.
Terminating child support because of a lack of family contact is an exceptional legal remedy in Spain. Supreme Court doctrine establishes that child maintenance can only be extinguished on grounds of estrangement when the complete absence of a relationship is attributable exclusively to the child. If a parent has contributed to the emotional distance or demonstrated passive disinterest, courts will not release them from their financial responsibilities.
The Family Court initially hearing the dispute determined that the estrangement had accumulated gradually over a sustained period, and that the father had played an active role in the loss of contact. The lower court therefore refused his request to end the maintenance payments.
Financial Independence and the Age of Majority
In his appeal to the Provincial Court of the Balearic Islands, the father insisted that his daughters' ages and educational status warranted an immediate end to the payments. He argued that turning 20 and completing academic programmes meant they should no longer receive financial help from him.
The appellate judges firmly rejected that argument. The court ruled that reaching the age of majority or finishing an educational stage does not automatically mean that an adult child is capable of financial self-sufficiency.
The magistrates affirmed that Spanish courts must evaluate the educational circumstances and economic needs of each family individually on the evidence. In this dispute, the father sought to end payments based both on the estrangement and on his daughters' ages, but neither argument met the legal threshold required to modify the post-divorce arrangement.
The Provincial Court concluded that the digital evidence, the years of parental absence, and the financial reality of the daughters precluded assigning sole blame for the estrangement to the young women. The ruling dismissed the father's appeal in its entirety, keeping the 300 euro monthly payment order fully in force.
