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Lawyers analyse child’s ‘new room contract’ with 9-year-old sister

‘Would a Haribo rent be a sensible consideration?’

Image credit: @JodiNewtonLaw

A lawyer mum has taken to Twitter to share a funny bedroom ‘contract’ between her son and daughter, and other lawyers have given their thoughts on its “legality”.

Jodi Newton, a medical negligence solicitor at Osbornes Law, tweeted: “Thoughts on the legality of this contract I have found between my 11 year old son and 9 year old daughter concerning an agreement reached about who takes the loft room in our new house?”

The three-clause kiddy ‘contract’ hands ownership of the loft in Newton’s new house to her son, and once signed, her daughter cannot say that her brother does not own it.

Twitter lawyers joked that the typed note had no consideration (“both literally and metaphorically”) or witness and that there may be “some form of duress due to the ages of the parties” involved. One Twitter user wrote: “Would a Haribo rent be a sensible consideration?”

The latest comments from across Legal Cheek

Other lawyers piled in giving their ‘advice’:

There were further amusing suggestions from lawyers that the children should hold the room as joint tenants or that the daughter should ensure a “transfer undertaking when her brother goes to university (to study law)”. Another Twitter user suggested that they test it in court “with Mummy LJ and Daddy LJ presiding together with the President, Grandma LJ”. Others said that the parents taking up the new room would constitute — cue nerdy contract law joke — “frustration”.

Simon Mallett of KBW Barristers Chambers tweeted: “Unreadable signature — instantly deniable and unclear what is being offered — masterly agreement — they both have a very bright (and worrying) career ahead.”

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