Gym Membership Under 16

wagstaf

good morning all.

A friend's son took out a gym membership a few months ago. He was 15 or 16 at the time. He wants to cancel as he has been working fewer hours and cannot afford it.

The contract was for 12 months and was payable by direct debit each month.

I think that if he was under 18 when he took out the contract then it is not enforceable.

Any thoughts please?

Many thanks for all your help.

W.

galangm8

Exactly right...

the same thing happended to my daughter and she soon wanted to end it after a few months...

I argued it out that she should not have been given a 12 month contract as she was underage, (they had her listed as 18yrs) therefore they did not pursue it.

antrobus

wagstaf wrote: »

...A friend's son took out a gym membership a few months ago. He was 15 or 16 at the time. He wants to cancel as he has been working fewer hours and cannot afford it.

The contract was for 12 months and was payable by direct debit each month.

I think that if he was under 18 when he took out the contract then it is not enforceable.

Any contract entered into by a minor is voidable by said minor, unless it's a contract for 'neccessities'. A gym membership would not appear to be a neccessity, and hence said minor can void (that is cancel) the contract.

P.S. The contract itself is perfectly enforceable. It's just that one party to the contract can cancel at will.

Optimist

wagstaf wrote: »

good morning all.

A friend's son took out a gym membership a few months ago. He was 15 or 16 at the time. He wants to cancel as he has been working fewer hours and cannot afford it.

The contract was for 12 months and was payable by direct debit each month.

I think that if he was under 18 when he took out the contract then it is not enforceable.

Any thoughts please?

Many thanks for all your help.

W.

You do not say where your friend is but if it is in Scotland then the age of legal capacity is 16 if in England 18...They obviously mature earlier in Scotland

Even in England a minor can sign a contract and the general principal is that the contract is binding on the adult but not the minor with certain exceptions.

A minor can contract for necessities the definition of which can change according to circumstances, under SOGA it is defined as “necessaries” means goods suitable to the condition in life of the [ minor or other] person concerned and to his actual requirements at the time of the sale and delivery."

Assuming nobody acted as a guarantor and he is in England then his best is to argue that he is the age of capacity to sign and hope they accept that.

fluffnutter

With my fascist head on (and I'm usually very anti gym memberships and sympathetic to kids) I can't help but think 'welcome to the adult world'. What was he thinking of signing up for a 12 month contract to a gym at his age anyway? It's madness to think that a kid who's no doubt still at school and therefore earning little should be signing up for gym contracts.

You could argue that it's a valuable lesson learnt - don't commit yourself to things that you can't follow through. And I also suspect he's lied about his age to get himself that contract so even more reason for him to not be able to simply use his legal get out of jail free card. He should take some responsibility for a bad decision, rather than just think 'Phew, it's unenforceable because I'm only 15. Lucky me'.

DCodd

fluffnutter wrote: »

With my fascist head on (and I'm usually very anti gym memberships and sympathetic to kids) I can't help but think 'welcome to the adult world'. What was he thinking of signing up for a 12 month contract to a gym at his age anyway? It's madness to think that a kid who's no doubt still at school and therefore earning little should be signing up for gym contracts.

You could argue that it's a valuable lesson learnt - don't commit yourself to things that you can't follow through. And I also suspect he's lied about his age to get himself that contract so even more reason for him to not be able to simply use his legal get out of jail free card. He should take some responsibility for a bad decision, rather than just think 'Phew, it's unenforceable because I'm only 15. Lucky me'.

In principle your statement may be morally correct. However in reality if the child has no or not enough income to cover the gym membership then it would inevitabley fall upon the parent to "bail" them out anyway. Thus the lesson effectively remains unlearnt.

fluffnutter

DCodd wrote: »

In principle your statement may be morally correct. However in reality if the child has no or not enough income to cover the gym membership then it would inevitabley fall upon the parent to "bail" them out anyway. Thus the lesson effectively remains unlearnt.

I guess so. But it depends how much grief the parents give him