Acting as a guarantor
If you have a child at university, you
are probably familiar with the concept
of acting as your child’s guarantor.
Landlords are normally keen to have
a guarantor on a student letting to
avoid a situation whereby the rent is
not paid and they have little prospect
of recovery against a student who is
unlikely to have substantial income
or assets. But did you realise that you
could be signing up to being more
than just your child’s guarantor? Did
you really intend to guarantee the
rent and the potential damage caused
by one of your child’s housemates?
It is important before signing a
guarantor agreement that you are
fully aware of your obligations as
a guarantor. The starting place is
to look at the tenancy agreement
itself – does the agreement relate to
P9
the whole of the property or just a
single bedroom and shared use of the
communal areas? If the agreement is
for the former, you could effectively
be agreeing to guarantee all of your
child’s housemates (even if they
themselves have a guarantor).
You may think, what is the worst
that could happen? In a tenancy
agreement which covers the whole
of the property you will normally be
guaranteeing the payment of the
rent, any damage to the property
and any damage caused as a result
of not complying with the tenant’s
obligations under the lease. In short,
if matters cannot be resolved with the
landlord, legal proceedings could be
initiated against you personally as a
guarantor for the loss suffered by the
landlord as a result of any of
the tenants.