The Bank of Mum and Dad’s shut, judge tells 41-year-old

Son loses bid to make his parents fund him for life

AN unemployed Oxford graduate aged 41 has no right to expect ‘child maintenance’ for life from his parents, the Appeal Court ruled yesterday.

Faiz Siddiqui was told his ‘long-suffering’ mother and father owe him nothing after they let him live rent-free in a £1million flat after completing his modern history degree.

They have also been paying all his bills and giving him £400-aweek pocket money.

Mr Siddiqui has been unemployed for a decade despite qualifying as a solicitor, and according to his parents he has also claimed benefits. He brought his novel legal case when relations with his ‘enormously wealthy’ father Javed, 71, and mother Rakshanda, 69, broke down, and he feared they were about to cast him adrift.

But his claim that he is ‘utterly dependent’, and that adult children have a ‘human right’ to lifelong financial support from their parents, has been rejected.

Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Underhill said it was ‘plainly Parliament’s view that parents should be under no legal duty to support adult children, however grave their need’. Fellow appeal judge Lord Justice Moylan said allowing the claim would have amounted to a ‘very considerable invasion of his parents’ right to respect for their private and family life’.

He added that if successful, the son’s claim – brought under the European Convention on Human Rights – would have meant ‘the creation of a right for all children to bring claims’.

His parents’ barrister Justin Warshaw QC argued that allowing the claim to proceed would result in the floodgates being opened to thousands of adults wanting cash from their parents.

He said: ‘Their highly qualified son lives rent free in their £1million two-bed London apartment, a stone’s throw from Hyde Park. They pay for his utilities and give him £1,500 or so each month. That is their choice. The state cannot and should not be interfering in that.’

He added: ‘The parents are devastated they are being put through this ordeal by their son.’

After grammar school in Berkshire, Mr Siddiqui, pictured, went to Brasenose College, Oxford, and later gained a Master’s in taxation. He worked as a solicitor for top law firms and for Ernst and Young as a tax adviser. His case had previously been rejected by the family courts, where Mr Siddiqui argued he was owed maintenance because mental health issues make him ‘vulnerable’, and that his parents had ‘nurtured his dependency’ on them. But Mr Warshaw said his claim was ‘cynical’ and described him as a ‘serial litigator’ – three years ago, Mr Siddiqui sued Oxford University in a bid to bump up his degree grade to a first, and lost that too. He now faces having to pay legal costs of £100,000-plus.