To have been so annoyed by this selfish people and to warn people from being guarantors ?

[Spice22]

Come back from holiday and catch up on my guilty pleasure ; Can't pay, we'll take it away!

In this episode, the parents signed as guarantors for their daughter's rent. She owes the landlord £3000. High court enforcement has gone to the parents, as the guarantors, to ask for the money. You can tell thy are only just making ends meet. Long story short , the daughter tells the parents "It's your debt, you pay it".

Genuinely shocked and angry on their behalf. How is it even ok that the parents are the ones threatened with losing their possessions, before they've threatened the daughter ??

Then another one shows a gentleman having to pay back more than £60k because he was a guarantor !

AIBU to be so shocked ,and annoyed, that such selfish and ungrateful people exist ?

My dad is my guarantor. He has had to prove post tax income of at least 3x the rent and owns his house outright. I'm not more likely to trash a house or not pay my rent - in fact most rentals were in too disgusting a state for me to consider. I have high standards. I bought my first house (3bed detached, in nice area) at 19. I signed it all over to extremely violent, volatile and abusive ex so he would leave me alone. Escaping ex meant going on HB, etc. I'm just relieved that dad earnt enough and knows he raised me to be responsible.

The paperwork does make it clear what a guarantor is. It does make it clear if the person you are guaranteeing doesn't pay you do. Agents do make sure you have the financial ability to pay up as guarantor, otherwise there would be no point in you being a guarantor.

Obviously you need to be sensible about who you guarantor for. The parents of that girl surely knew she was financially irresponsible and didn't give a shit about them.

usernametaken did you/your son pay another deposit as well?

I don't know how people are supposed to house themselves any more. I can understand why people decline being guarantors equally I was asked for one just yesterday. I earn a lot, more than enough to cover my rent, have never been late with rent but because I receive £10 a week in HB just due to the number of kids I have, I needed a guarantor. I said no thank you to that house but I'm lucky to have options

The paperwork does make it clear what a guarantor is. It does make it clear if the person you are guaranteeing doesn't pay you do.

I really don't think this is made clear enough in the specific case of joint and several contracts: a lot of tenants, let alone their guarantors, would be pretty shocked to discover that they're liable if their housemate just disappears in the night leaving their share of the rent unpaid.

Yes he did MargaretCavendish.

I was asked to guarantor my uni student ds....on enquiring further with the letting agency i found that the guarantor is responsible for all the people in the house not just your own child....needless to say i refused and paid his last 3 months rent instead to get out of it....

That's due to the nature of the tenancy. Not all would apply this way.

And still my FIL can't understand why DH and I weren't willing to stand as guarantors for BIL who had trouble renting a home because of huge debts and CCJs for non payment......

ifyoulike it's not a case of being narrow minded or judgemental, tenants with need for guarantors are high risk.

Sometimes you have to be a guarantor though don't you? For Uni accommodation for anyone under eighteen, they generally require a guarantor for the Uni's own accommodation or they did at my dds.

I did it for three years and although we did not have any problems in the first two years, in year three of all years, she went a bit off the rails and I had a horrible vision of having to pay the full years rent. But I knew I was liable and it was the gamble (and that is what it is) I chose to make.

Happily, she stuck it out but I would not do it again.

I've seen that episode. I couldn't believe the attitude of the daughter

Would certainly have treated her different after that. No help would be offered from that day

I've had my mother as guarantor on a couple of rental homes over the years (I have poor credit but no longer any debts) and it would never occur to me to not pay my rent and make it her problem! I know that in extreme emergency situations my mum would help me as much as she could afford but I would never want to put her in that situation.

If the contract means you're only responsible for your own child, and you've raised them to be a responsible person then there shouldn't be a problem. The problem is the people who have shameful attitudes towards owing money and don't respect their parents

The student shared rental is an abomination, I'm surprised to hear it's still legal. We nearly got caught out a few years ago: DS planning to share with 8 mates. They'd all paid deposits and all parents except us had immediately signed as guarantors - we'd planned to read contract at weekend first. Couldn't believe the, well buried in the small print, joint liability terms, thought I must be reading it wrong, it sounded so unreasonable - got a solicitor mate to double check it. Then told landlord we wouldn't be proceeding, lost deposit, lesson learned.

DS was furious and a bit embarrassed, but saw our point when one of other parents had to stump up over £1000 for electric bill at year end. The creditors go for low hanging fruit I.e. Parents with "most desirable" home address apparently.

It could have been a lot worse - solicitor gave us scenario of any one of the tenants causing destruction of the house, and we could have been chased for the total damage.

This situation will continue until enough student guarantors just say no to these contracts.

sorry, posted too soon.
I know there are exceptions, but as I let through an agent due to distance I just don't let to people who would require a guarantor. as if they didn't pay it would put financial strain on my family, especially with legal costs etc. I didn't buy the property to let, it's just sort of worked out that way after a temporary relocation turned long term.
it's not a personal attack. there are plenty of landlords, who probably have a bit more financial flexibility, who are happy to let to people in the high risk bracket, and if I was in a different position I would too, but I'm not. It's not personal to you, it's personal to me.

Generally speaking the tenant (or whoever took the debt out) will be pursued first and foremost. However, if they then don't pay, of course the guarantor will be chased.

I would always think of a guarantor loan/rent agreement etc as being like a joint debt. Or like taking a debt out on behalf of someone else. They don't pay, you're liable.

And tbh OP I do sort of understand where you're coming from, but guarantors will have all of this explained to them before they sign any agreement. If they don't foresee the potential consequences then that's their lookout.

Most student accommodation is a contract for one house for X people. If it was a contract for X rooms for X people in one house, there would be more red tape for the landlord, hence why most prefer to rent the house as one unit.

This means that students have to share liability for the whole property with each other, and the risk here is that a lot of people don't know their housemates very well. Parents aren't just guaranteeing their DCs' share of the rent, they're guaranteeing the rent of people who their DCs may not actually know well enough to trust with such a big financial commitment.

Parents would do well to remind their DCs when they start university to keep an eye out for like-minded potential housemates early on, so they end up renting with people they trust rather than renting with a bunch of random people and hoping for the best. The impact isn't just on the students, as this thread points out, it's on the parents.

Apart from that, little you can do. Some unis will allow students another year in halls (no guarantor required) but the living outside of uni experience is a very valuable one.

harderandharder2breathe you are of course right an in most cases that is true. The problem is the unforeseeable. Usually guarantors are needed not because someone looks as if they won't be able to pay but because they have no back up if something happens. (A friend is guarantor for his elderly mother in case she dies!!)

I also think that with these things a vicious circle is created by "bad" people on both sides. It is much harder to evict tenants now and much more difficult for Landlords to take large deposits. Deposits have to be registered and cannot be used for non payment of rent. (Rightly as some LLs abused this). Some tenants now wait to be evicted as they believe that once they are "homeless" they will have priority for Council Housing. Consequently Landlords have to protect themselves but it then becomes much more difficult for good tenants to secure a place to live.

For loans, on Moneysavingexpert, their advice, after don't be a guarantor unless you are happy to give the money away, but if you do decide to do it, instead take out the loan in your own name and get the person wanting the loan to pay you back because then the interest rate is lower.

The likes of Amigo Loans charge horrendous interest rates even though there is no risk to them because of the guarantor.

The student housing system is horrendous, but it appears that there isn't an alternative - if you want to rent a house, your parents have to risk paying £££s back if you or any of your fellow tenants can't or won't pay - totally ridiculous.

My Auntie guaranteed a loan for my uncle (her brother) years ago. He failed to pay so she had to and it caused a huge family rift for about 20 years, plus significant hardship for her at the time.

The problem with the shared house scenario is difficult to solve any other way. All rent can be paid up front for the whole year and huge damage deposits taken but that makes renting impossible for many people.

If at the year there are unpaid bills or damage does the landlord sue five different individuals for a fifth of that? The costs would be unreasonable. And then when he sues person number 2 she/he insists that he paid his share to person number 3 - who denies it.

It is very difficult.

The creditors go for low hanging fruit I.e. Parents with "most desirable" home address apparently.

Well, yes, creditors prefer to look for their money where it is to be found. Who'd have thought it?

usernametaken oh, I'm really sorry then, I was wrong. I didn't read your post carefully enough. I've just heard lots of people call the deposit 'the last month's rent', and I've seen people online encouraging other people to treat it like this 'to stop the landlord stealing your deposit'. A case like yours with a separate damage deposit is a different thing, so sorry again!

It would be interesting to know how many parent guarantors of student rentals have had to pay up in the last few years? I have never heard of it happening, but presumably sometimes it does.

It has puzzled me for a while - what happens if a student's dparents simply won't guarantee, or are deemed not creditworthy themselves - what does the student do? I've assumed that in some cities all student rentals require a guarantor. and negotiation isn't usually possible because there's a shortage of accommodation and because generally dparents do sign up - quite possibly not realising the 'joint and several' nature of the risk, or just choosing to take that risk - so a ll can just decline to rent to anyone who refuses.
The poster who was allowed to pay 3 months rent instead - that may have been because 4 other dparents had signed up, so the ll already had guarantees for the whole lot anyway.

BarbaraofSeville - good advice re loans.

I was asked to guarantee a loan via Amigo. The woman was not a friend but someone I had taken care of in an indirect way, (mentor), since her childhood. I had often lent her money and usually said she could have it as a gift as it was always "next week" when it would be paid back.

She initially asked me to "vouch for her" so I asked for a bit more info - and she sent me the link to Amigo. I was shocked by what they were selling. I told her "No" as my mortgage company wouldn't allow it and advised her to avoid it.

Beware of being a guarantor for a student who is sharing. I realise it has been mentioned above. I work at a University and recently was informed by the housing team that a parent guarantor can be pursued if any of the students default. This is London where landlords have their choice of tenants & will often ask for 6 months rent upfront from students.

The creditors go for low hanging fruit I.e. Parents with "most desirable" home address apparently. - They do indeed. Wouldn't you if you were owed thousands of pounds and had a mortgage to pay!

I strongly advised my brother not to do this for his DS as he had a high-ish profile public sector job so easy to go after. He did it anyway. Luckily all was well.

There is another reason why most HMO landlords use joint contracts, because mortgage lenders insist upon it.

I'm a student landlord and used to use individual ASTs as I believe it is fairer to both students and guarantors. However, when I needed to remortgage I couldn't get a mortgage that allowed me to do this and had to start using joint agreements.

It is possible to issue modified guarantors agreements, which limit liability to only the individual you have agreed to guarantee and many student lettings specialists use these.

I'm not saying that there aren't landlords out there who go for the joint option solely to limit risk and who have no scruples about who they go after for debts. There are however many of us who have not choice due to our mortgage terms.