In the official rules of Monopoly, can you offer immunity to other players in deals?

In the official rules of Monopoly, can you offer immunity to other players in deals? Also, what about tournament play, which has different rules again? For example, it was a common house rule from my childhood that where two players were making a deal, but one of the players was more at risk of landing on the other player's property in the next move or two, the owner of those properties would offer immunity for the next time around the board (or maybe even the next two or three times around the board). So this is a popular house rule, but is it allowed in the official Monopoly rules and in tournament play?

There's nothing anywhere to stop you making a deal: the question is whether it can be enforced when you do land on the property next. My own view is that it can't, except in the sense that anyone who does insist on the rent will find it difficult to make deals in future.

You cannot offer free rent to any player under any circumstance. I specifically remember reading this on a questions & answer listing on a cardboard insert of a Monopoly game.

This was a matter of contention many Christmases. it's particularly wack if there are 5+ players and three players gang up on one person.

3 Answers 3

The official rules are here. I can see nothing in the rules that would explicitly prevent one player offering immunity to another player. You only have to pay rent if the owner of the property asks you for it:

The owner may not collect the rent if he/she fails to ask for it before the second player following throws the dice.

However, you could argue that offering immunity violates the spirit of the no lending rule:

No player may borrow from or lend money to another player.

Suppose Alice wants to offer immunity to Bob as part of a larger deal. Alice could informally "forget" to collect rent from Bob, and she could informally tell Bob that she tends to become rather forgetful when she is given the better end of a trade. But I see no provision in the rules to prevent Alice from changing her mind after the deal has been struck, since this immunity does not formally exist within the rules of the game.

Going by the official rules, you don't have a choice whether to collect rent or not:

When you land on property owned by another player, the owner collects rent from you.

This doesn't give the property owner any choice in the matter, they simply do collect rent.

However, you could offer immunity as follows:

1. The player who lands on your property pays rent.
2. You immediately pay them back the amount they just paid.

To do this, you'll have to be able to give money to another player. There is a rule forbidding loans between players:

No player may borrow from or lend money to another player.

but a gift is not the same as a loan. Another way to give money to another player is to sell them an unimproved property for $0, then buy it back for the amount you wish to give them. This is allowed by a different rule:

Unimproved properties, railroads and utilties (but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction for any amount.

All of this comes with a caveat: You can't do anything to force someone to grant you immunity, it's entirely up to them choosing to act in good faith.