CAPACITY TO CONTRACT UNDER THE AGE OF 18 YEARS OF AGE? ?

Question

I need some help with one of my assignment questions; i will explain the scenario as it is and if you can help that would be greatly appreciated.

My Mother a lawyer has promised me on my 16th birthday that if i pass year 12 and i get into law at uni she will buy me a new car as a reward. I have passed year 12 and have now been accepted into law school.

I have demanded my mum to get me my new car as promised and she is claiming that she was joking.

what do i do ?

Answer 1

I'm not a contract lawyer but it seems to me that the problem here is a lack of consideration for the car (contract = offer, acceptance and consideration). Consideration has to be capable of having a financial value and you passing year 12 and getting into law school, while it may make your mother proud and happy, cannot really be given a financial value for her. As such it would simply be a promise, which is unenforceable unless you can rely on promissory estoppel, which requires reliance to your detriment.

The capacity issue is, I would suggest, not really key to this problem.

Answer 2

It's not a binding agreement, sorry. Now you know that even people you trust are welshers. Most people lie when money is involved, that's why contracts are generally written and have specific performance. It's funny that you would believe your mom in the first place. Lawyers and politicians are people who make their living by lying. They get off on it.

Answer 3

Ok, this is an assignment, not your situation..whew...I was about to think of you as a spoiled brat.

In the US, you'd have no case, because verbal agreements don't hold up in court.  Get a job and earn money to buy a car.  If you are legally unable to sign for your car, and your parents are willing to sign, fine.  If not, start taking public transportation, walk, bike, bum rides, borrow a car, etc until you are old enough to sign for your own car.

Does that answer sound like the answer your instructor is looking for?

Answer 4

Laugh at her joke, get a job, and buy your own car.  

Answer 5

Duh, isn't law school a post graduate school???

That is not really a question, it is a statement.  Law school admission requires that you already have a degree from a college, which is four years away from high school graduation.  You still have to wait to get thru college to collect on the car.

Good Luck though

Now that you are over the age of 18, you can reaffirm the contract.

And by the way, the contract is uninforcable.  You have not actually entered law school, so you have not completed your obligations, therefore she is under no obligation to comply with her end and buy you the car.

If you had already completed, or at least entered law school, then you would have a suit for enforcement, having relied on her promise to your detrement.  

As far as having completed year 12,  you were required to do that anyway, so you are not injured by having done something you were already requied to do.

The only thing you have done to uphold your end of the contract that you were not going to do anyway is pay the application fee for law school, so you might be entitled to the fee you paid if you sue and win.  

Whether or not the contract is written is not really decisive, oral contracts are enforcable, but the problem is proof.  If the other party is willing to lie to get out of a contract then it will be very difficult to win a lawsuit, unless you have witnesses, or some other proof of the existance of the contract.

Answer 6

Not much you can do. You are still a minor in the eyes of the law if you had a law degree you would still have to have someone sign for you to get a car. Maybe mom don't have the money right now.

Answer 7

Read your book.  The answer is in there, believe me.

Hint:  Look in the index for "Promissory Estoppel."