Lay My Hat

Good morning we have received an enquiry from 4 17 year old lads wanting to rent our apartment in Ayia Napa. They state that they are very interested in booking but ask the question " would it be ok as we are only 17 years old ?" apparently they have been turned down by others for this reason. My question is Do they legally have to be 18 years old , or have they been rejected for fear that they would possibly cause damage. I personally have no objection on renting to a gang of young lads, we were all young once.

many thanks in advance
Phil.

I think the problem is that they cannot be bound by a contract until they (or at least one of them) are 18. They have been up front and honest with you, which implies a degree of responsibility. Perhaps find out what their ages will be when they are to stay? The other option would be to have parents sign as responsible and take a hefty deposit - this is what happens to university students and their accommodation with landlords.

charliechoice wrote:we were all young once.

Indeed we were, but even so there's no way I'd risk renting to my younger self & my teenage mates.
Having visited & thoroughly enjoyed AN many moons ago, my older & wiser self would hear alarm bells.
To be fair, plenty of 'grown ups' can be a pain too - but they tend to run out of steam a bit sooner!

I had a similar group a few years back and they also admitted to struggling to find somewhere to stay.

I took a bigger deposit but it wasn't necessary in my case as they were a good bunch.

These days I would ask to connect with them on Facebook to get an idea of their habits, get a huge deposit (which I would use if necessary) and lay the law down big style before I would consider allowing them to stay.

My main worry would be your responsibility to them (even though you're presumably not on site). In that situation I would insist that a parent of each of the party would have to agree that they are still "responsible at a distance" for their offspring while you are not.

We had a similar situation a year or two back and the booking was eventually cancelled when the trip was news to the parents of the youngest in the group.