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Some stories take almost a lifetime to reach their ending. José Luis Malagón is 84 years old, and he has just won a legal battle that began before most people would even think about picking one. A court in Morón de la Frontera, Seville, has officially recognised him as the son of a businessman who died back in 1963, more than six decades ago, thanks to a DNA test carried out on exhumed remains.

 

The story behind the case is as remarkable as the outcome. Malagón's mother was rejected by his father as soon as he learned she was pregnant, and José Luis grew up without ever knowing the man. The path to finding out the truth only opened up by chance, after his mother happened to get talking to a man at the University of Seville, where the businessman had worked as a professor. That man told her he had been her former partner's administrator, and that he was willing to confirm the relationship in writing before a notary.

 

That conversation set everything in motion. Malagón contacted the Osuna Law Firm in Seville, and his lawyer Fernando Osuna first tried to reach an agreement with the existing family. They weren't interested. A formal complaint was eventually filed in 2013, launching what would become a long and at times frustrating legal process.

 

The biggest challenge was identifying the right remains. Cemetery records were unclear, and the court initially ordered the exhumation of up to five bodies before samples from just two proved sufficient. Those exhumations finally took place on December 20 2023.

 

Osuna told reporters that his client had now received "a sentence that he had been waiting for for many years." It's a line that rather understates quite how long this particular wait has been.

 

The ruling, however, isn't quite the end of the road. Spanish law doesn't grant paternity and inheritance in the same legal act, so Malagón will now need to negotiate separately with the heirs who received his father's estate at the time. If those talks break down, another court process awaits.

 

At 84, he's shown he's got the patience for it.