DS17 lied about his age on a contract. Is he in trouble?

[Justnevergetsthere]

Oh for the love of football!! DS17 has recently been playing weekly 6 aside football at a local sports venue. I assumed him and friends booked and paid for the pitch as and when they played. As it turns out, DS entered into a contract with the venue as each team needed a 'captain' who paid the fees each week which was then divided between his team mates but all funds came from his account. The season ended in December and a new one starts this week. He had no plans to continue playing and thought that was the end of that. He received two emails four weeks before the end of the season asking him to re-register for the new season. He ignored them as he had no intention to return and assumed that no contact from him meant end of contract. He has since discovered that he will be liable for charges of £1218 which is the cancellation fees for the entire new season. He didn't read the emails at all and no longer has them so I can't check to see what the Ts and Cs were. I have looked through the sports club's website and I can't find anything on there regarding cancellation terms. Now here's the rub. In order for DS to have entered into the club's contract in the first place he had to declare that he was 18. Honestly, I could throttle him. So he's been fraudulent in that respect as well as being a complete fool for not reading his emails. Does anyone have any advice. Many thanks in advance.

Did they ask for proof of his age? Doesn’t sound like it in which case would the contract be void and the onus be on them for not checking his age and renting the pitch to a ‘child’?

Tech the contact is void as he is under 18 so no fees should be paid

a serious chat needs to be had to him about lying

why didn’t he just ask you to be captain if he was 17.

how long have they been playing ?

a year sounds a long time to hire the pitch

@Elfie23 thank you for the reply. He wasn't asked for any proof of age or ID at registration, it was just a check box to acknowledge that Ts&Cs had been read which included the age requirements.

@Blondeshavemorefun they'd only playing for 14 weeks which equates to a season. The captain had to be a player. I just thought that he was playing football with friends at a rentable pitch as they have done previously. I had no idea that some venues had binding contracts. Trust me, he has had stern words, but to be honest he's in such a state about this I can't punish him more then he is himself. He is a really good kid and is passionate about football, he just made a foolish mistake.

A minor cannot form a contract it is irrelevant what he did or did not say his age was.
You should contact the provider in writing to advise them that they should desist from pursuing him and that he will not be paying.

It is really important that he does not acknowledge a contract or debt once he reaches 18 the age of majority, as that can create liability in some circumstances.

They can't pursue him for it as it's void due to him being underage.

I don't think they can force you to pay on his behalf either.

@BillieWiper @Hedgehogforshort thank you both. This sounds very hopeful.

The contract isn’t valid due to his age but this really is a lesson to him to pay attention to emails and correspondence addressed to him.

They can’t insist he pays as he contact is void

They're due to take £80 from his account tomorrow. Can we cancel his card tonight and then write to the venue to tell them not to pursue it further.

Call the bank and tell them to refuse the transaction.

@FuzzyWolf right we'll do that now. Thank you.

This really is a good lesson learned for him. He should be concentrating on his revision for his A-level mocks next week, not this! 🙄

A minor can form a legaly binding contract so fraud on your sons behalf may not make the contract void.

Depending on how the payment is set up the autopay may be hard to cancel so he needs to keep an eye on his account

Being under 18 is one valid point but the venue is likely to try push to get the fees anyway.

Then one point would be that the contract was only for the limited fixed term and he/ the team only entered into the contract for the term with no intent to book the next term and therefore extending the contract value ie there is a mistake in the contract

Then the question of if he was not aware of the auto-renew at the time of sign-up how "hidden" was this term

What has happened to the team have all the members stopped playing or has someone else taken on a "new" contract?

How were the other players covered under access and insurance by the venue?

Had he a copy of the original contract or was it all done on site?
Can he contact any other team captain who is "better" organised and get a copy of the contract and renewal emails they were sent.

Good luck

@AnSolas only in specific areas such as essentials, that this contract does not fall within.

They cannot take any money from him. My son lied and got a PayPal account when underage, I didn't know about it until he got a letter from debt collectors. I'm not sure how it happened even. It wasn't for a large amount of money, but when I called them and said I wanted to pay as he was only 16 and still at school, they said they couldn't collect any debt for an under 18 year old.

If a minor enters into a contract then it is not automatically void as some have said but it is voidABLE, as long as he isn’t yet 18 (or recently turned 18). The fact that your son misrepresented his age doesn’t change that and that’s established in case law (Leslie v Sheill). He needs not to ignore the request / communication but to state clearly to the venue (in writing, for evidence, email is fine) that he is under 17 and that he repudiates and won’t be bound by the contract for that reason so no further attempts to gain payment should be made. If you can avoid any money being able to be taken then do as it may be hard to get it back.

Surely if the venue didn’t take any form of ID they couldn’t prove your son took the contract out - it could easily have been someone else pretending to be him (although you may not want to dig an even bigger hole!)

@Hedgehogforshort agreed on Essentials but healthcare cover under the club insurance etc could be valid so some of the fee could in theory be a valid contractual term. A multiprong argument may be better long term and as his friends may continue to use the service and invite him along for a match🤷‍♀️ better to throw the kitchen sink at it.

As for the bank transfer the son should call the bank in the morning and get them to block the clubs IBAN and payment reference from his account/card.

Hell no step well back from the hole
... that is claiming fraud against the sons bank account for prior payments which is easy to disprove and could tag/flag the sons account under the banks AML system.

He does owe this money OP so I would not be too high handed in dealing with the company. Could you/he explain what happened and his young age and make them an offer, eg to pay half or a third of it over an agreed period? DS is feeling awful and there is no need to rub it in, but it could be an important lesson in taking responsibility and paying attention to what he's signing, that will stand him
in good stead all his life.

Morning all. Thank you for all the replies, they have been helpful and somewhat reassuring. @AnSolas to answer some of your questions:

• I'm not sure if he knew about the auto renewal.

• There was no intention to carry on playing after the season as he knew he had to knuckle down to A level revision. Other players relied on him for transport to and from the venue, so the contract was not passed on.
• I don't know about the club's insurance policies.
• the contract was signed up online. No documents were requested for proof of ID either on the website or when they turned up at the venue for the first match. In fact, he said that when he arrived at the venue, no one was there to greet them, they basically had to find their pitch where a referee was waiting to officiate the match and then the ref took the scores to an admin person in an office.
• I will ask him if he knows someone else with a contract email.
• he has cancelled his card linked to the payments.

We have a resolution. The sports club have backed down and will no longer pursue DS for the money. Thank you to all of you who have helped me to challenge them on their contract arrangements 💐💐. Phew, what a relief, I'll sleep tonight as will my tit of a DS.

Ah what a relief indeed @Justnevergetsthere – and a positive is that it is a good life lesson for your DS.

That’s good

they seemed to be pushing their luck asking for £1218

how much did they pay monthly usually ?