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Abstract

Modern family structures are conducive to situations of loss of contact or poor relations between parents and children. The attitude of children, sometimes passive and sometimes violent, is reproached by parents for whom it is not enough for these behaviours to have consequences from a moral or ethical point of view, but who look to the legal system, and more specifically to family and inheritance law, for legal instruments with which to deal with these attitudes of children which they consider inappropriate and which cause them suffering. Our Civil Code is not adapted to the current social reality, which is why these attitudes on the part of children do not always fit in with the causes that the law provides for extinguishing maintenance, disinheritance or revoking donations received by them. While the regulatory reform is taking place, it has been the case law of the Supreme Court that has adapted the legislation to social reality, by classifying psychological mistreatment as a cause for disinheritance, by allowing the revocation of donations for ingratitude due to the mistreatment of the donee towards the donor and by confirming that it is possible to extinguish alimony when the lack of relationship between parents and children of legal age is attributable, in a principal and relevant way, to the children. All that remains is the last step, which is to consider that the absence of a relationship attributable exclusively to the children can deprive them of the legitimate share.