Court denies maintenance for adult son

ONE sadly does not remain in childhood forever, and reliance on maintenance cannot serve as insurance for the choices one makes, a judge remarked during an interim maintenance application involving a son who is in his 20s.

- ZELDA VENTER

Judge Elmien du Plessis, sitting in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, in a recent judgment, observed that one needs to distinguish between a legal duty and any moral duty that might rest on parents.

The legal issue before her involved an interim maintenance application (a Rule 43 application) by a woman who is embroiled in a divorce.

She demanded several financial contributions from her estranged husband, including a contribution to her legal costs, which at this point runs into more than R5 million.

The woman (the applicant) also claimed interim maintenance, pending the final divorce, for the couple's children, all of whom are in their 20s. They are all university students. The husband is already paying interim maintenance for two of his children, but his wife is now also claiming maintenance for the third son, who, after leaving home five years ago, moved back home.