No contract with you is legally enforceable unless you have capacity to form a binding contract -- which you generally lack prior to age eighteen -- but there is a little more.
I've seen 16-year-olds that are quite capable of renting a room, and behaving themselves in it as a guest who would always be welcome back: just relax in the evening, not have a bunch of people in there throwing a party and trashing it, not making excessive noise, not doing anything illegal (whether drugs, underage drinking, or underage sex), and not doing any damage. I've seen people in their 50's that it's not safe to rent a room to.
But if you rent to people under 21, experience and observation over time will show that most of your problems will come from the 21-and-under category. Any age limit is arbitrary, but it's easier to just impose one than to personally get to know every 18-to-21-year-old who shows up and make a more fair and objective assessment regarding the likelihood of those problems.
Exceptions are possible. We plan hotels in military towns. It's kind of cold to have a soldier or Marine shipped to Iraq or Afghanistan to get shot at, maybe wounded, permanently maimed, or killed for his country; and then tell him he's not good enough to rent a hotel room and get out of the barracks for the weekend if he makes it back. So, we're printing up a sheet on how we expect them to behave if they show up; and when they show up we plan to give them the sheet and have them sign off on it, cut them a pass on the age limit, and allow them to earn a loyalty card with a few extra benefits attached (our brands will not include a 'military rate' as an entitlement rate) that will allow them to bypass the age limit (in any of our hotels) if they stay with us once or twice and show us that they can be counted upon to behave themselves.
If we can make it work, we might do the same for college students.
And situations do occur where, for example, your teenage son or daughter is traveling out of town with your blessing, or is on a trip that you authorized and somehow is stranded. So, we want a little flexibility in situations were it's not the usual bunch of local kids looking for a party spot, that we're asking for trouble if we rent to them.
In most places and situations, however, we're better off having the age limit and generally sticking to it.
Originally appeared on Quora
I've seen 16-year-olds that are quite capable of renting a room, and behaving themselves in it as a guest who would always be welcome back: just relax in the evening, not have a bunch of people in there throwing a party and trashing it, not making excessive noise, not doing anything illegal (whether drugs, underage drinking, or underage sex), and not doing any damage. I've seen people in their 50's that it's not safe to rent a room to.
But if you rent to people under 21, experience and observation over time will show that most of your problems will come from the 21-and-under category. Any age limit is arbitrary, but it's easier to just impose one than to personally get to know every 18-to-21-year-old who shows up and make a more fair and objective assessment regarding the likelihood of those problems.
Exceptions are possible. We plan hotels in military towns. It's kind of cold to have a soldier or Marine shipped to Iraq or Afghanistan to get shot at, maybe wounded, permanently maimed, or killed for his country; and then tell him he's not good enough to rent a hotel room and get out of the barracks for the weekend if he makes it back. So, we're printing up a sheet on how we expect them to behave if they show up; and when they show up we plan to give them the sheet and have them sign off on it, cut them a pass on the age limit, and allow them to earn a loyalty card with a few extra benefits attached (our brands will not include a 'military rate' as an entitlement rate) that will allow them to bypass the age limit (in any of our hotels) if they stay with us once or twice and show us that they can be counted upon to behave themselves.
If we can make it work, we might do the same for college students.
And situations do occur where, for example, your teenage son or daughter is traveling out of town with your blessing, or is on a trip that you authorized and somehow is stranded. So, we want a little flexibility in situations were it's not the usual bunch of local kids looking for a party spot, that we're asking for trouble if we rent to them.
In most places and situations, however, we're better off having the age limit and generally sticking to it.
Originally appeared on Quora
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