siddiqui leaves court

The parties leaving court.


A former Clifford Chance trainee who sued his parents when they refused to provide him with a maintenance grant for life has lost his court bid to force them to cough up.

41-year-old Faiz Siddiqui, who also worked at Burges Salmon, Fieldfisher and EY, claimed that he had not worked since 2011 and was completely dependent on his wealthy parents.

The couple, who are based in Dubai, have allowed him to live rent-free in their £1 million flat near Hyde Park for the last 20 years, and also paid his bills and give him £400 spending money a week.

But after a family row in which they sought to stop paying his bills and to freeze the size of his allowance at £400, Siddiqui sued. The lawyer argued that his parents "nurtured his dependency", then abandoned him to the state. 

Siddiqui's barrister, Hugh Southey QC, proposed that his client was entitled to apply for maintenance under the 1989 Children's Act because he was a "vulnerable" adult due to health issues.

Justin Warshaw QC, acting for Siddiqui's "long-suffering" parents, argued that they had "reached their own view of what is suitable provision for their difficult, demanding and pertinacious 41-year-old son", and that it was not appropriate for the state to compel them to give him more.

"His skeleton argument is littered with emotive references to 'child' and 'children'", said Warshaw, when, "To be clear, this is a man in his 40s, seeking financial support from his elderly parents - 69 and 71 years old, respectively".

"It goes without saying that the parents are devastated that they are being put through this ordeal by their son and that they are being put to such enormous expense, particularly when set against their historic and ongoing generosity towards him", he said.

Throwing out the case, the judges rejected Siddiqui's argument that society's understanding of the relationship between parents and their adult children had "moved on", finding that the bank of mum and dad could not be unilaterally crowbarred open indefinitely and that married parents had "no legal duty to support their adult children". 

It is the second exceptional claim Siddiqui has brought. In 2016 he unsuccessfully sued Oxford University, alleging 16 years after graduating that its "boring" and "appallingly bad" tuition robbed him of a first class degree and a successful career in law, and forced him to settle for a training contract at, erm, Clifford Chance*.

*RollOnFriday understands that Siddiqui may have spiked his chances of being retained when, according to lawyers on the discussion board, he "once mistakenly asked a (youthful-looking) partner to scan some documents for him".


Don’t let us stay in your flat, just take a moment to fill in the survey below. Thanks!

Survey

Status message

Sorry, the survey is now closed. Thanks for trying! But you are too late. Why, why so late?

Tip Off ROF

Comments

ShootyOriginal 05 November 21 09:08

£1 million flat in London? 

To be fair to him, it must be absolutely tiny.

Anonymous 05 November 21 11:48

Smallest Violin award goes too this bellend!  Plenty of jobs in Tesco’s pushing trolleys.  Welcome to the real world.

Related News