Debts:Parents bail out kids
40% of parents bail out adult children's debt
Wednesday, 19 Sep 2007 10:45
Forty per cent of UK parents have helped out their adult offspring pay debts.
Some 7.5 million parents have given an average of £2,540, according to a MoneyExpert.com poll of 2,511 people.
Thirteen per cent have given between £5,000 and £20,000.
A quarter of parents offer help with debts from buying a car and a further quarter have paid off credit card bills.
Twenty per cent of parents have helped with overdrafts, 15 per cent with student loans and nine per cent have aided children with mortgage repayments.
"Having a child is an expensive business and unfortunately spending on your kids doesn’t stop once they reach adulthood," said Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.
"With the cost of living so high at the moment and with so many people living a buy-now-pay-later lifestyle, parents are often forced to help out their children financially in later life."
Across the country, parents help offspring most in the Midlands and the least in Scotland.
However, parents are not alone in having to help.
Some 31 per cent of grandparents are putting money aside for grandchildren - with a quarter wanting to help fund their grandchild's education and one in six trying to help them buy a first property, according to CreditExpert.co.uk.