Minors Cannot Make a Valid Contract

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Minors cannot make valid contract. Critically assess the extent to which this statement is true. (June 2005 Paper 3, Question 1) A contract is an agreement between two or more persons to do, or to refrain from doing, a particular thing in exchange for something of value. Contracts can generally be written using formal or informal terms, or they can be entirely verbal. If one side fails to live up to his/her/its part of the contract, there's a "breach" of contract and certain remedies for solving the differences are available. “Minors cannot make valid contract”. Traditionally, those who are under 21 were considered as a minor by the law and usually the law addressed them as ‘infants’. Their ability to make contracts was first limited by the common law, and then by the Infants Relief Act 1874, whereby rather complicated provisions on the subject were introduced. In the year of 1969, the Family Law Reform Act reduced the age of majority to 18 and authorised the term "minor" as an alternative to "infant”, and then in the year of 1987, the Minors’ Contracts Act abolished the Infants Relief Act 1874, and had the common law restored, which still governs contracts made by minors today. Contracts do not bind minors was the basis of the common law rule, however, there are some types of contract which are binding on minors, or which are merely voidable. The only contracts that are binding on a minor are contracts for the supply of necessaries. Under the Sale of Goods Act 1979, s.3(2), the term ‘necessaries’ are defined as ‘goods suitable to the condition in life of the minor or other person concerned and to his actual requirements at the time of sale and delivery’. Therefore, it includes more than just such essentials as food, clothing and shelter, and in deciding the issue the courts can take into account the social status of the particular minor – items which might
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