Son asking me to be a guarantor on a house share with 3 others - I'd be responsible for all rent if it went terribly wrong. would you sign?

[Ashleys63]

I don't want my son to lose the house but I'm really not sure. I wouldn't have the money to cover anyone else's part of the rent so would they take me to court etc?
My son assures me his mates are all wonderful and would never not pay their part of the rent but how does he know - anything can happen.

what would you do? I don't want to fall out with him over this .

We own the properties DC’s stayed in during Uni. We had guarantees from anyone letting a room (ended up being friends of DC’s) and credit checks of the guarantors. We use a properly management company so we didn’t have to get involved.

@Xenia - would you have refused if their father hadn't acted as guarantor?

As mentioned previously a parent can ask the agent for a limitation clause to be added to the guarantee quoting a maximum amount payable under the guarantee. We’ve done this three times now and not one agent/landlord has refused. I am happy to guarantee my own DC’s rent as I can appreciate why a landlord would want some level of protection and the amended guarantee still provides them with that without me having to take on the risk of the other tenants not paying.

@Wetellyourstory - interesting.

But, say the rent was #100 per week, then, in week 1 if you had to pay the whole #5200 that wouldn't be incorrect.

However in week 30 I would still not want to be on the hook for 5k?

@topcat2014 I fully understand where you are coming from with that concern. However I worded it something along the lines of “my liability under this guarantee is limited to cover any unpaid rental payment of student name of £x per week up to a maximum of £x (annual rent)”. This is to identify that it’s only the weekly rent and if I have evidence that the rent has been paid each week, there is no liability. The landlords all said they would only ever pursue for my own DC’s rent not any other tenant (by email) so it was in effect putting that assurance in the guarantee and I have the email as evidence too. I’m not a solicitor so don’t know how much legal assurances it provided but I was happy that this covered the issue enough for me to sign the guarantee and for the landlord to know I would challenge if he tried to pursue for anything more. On the basis that the last house had 10 occupants, this was very important - annual rent was over £50k!

Would I have refused? Not sure. I would certainly have wanted to negotiate that I was only liable for my child and also offerd to pay the full year in advacce for my child first.

The biggest issue with my children is they don't want to be "that" student - the one who causes a problem and loses the friends group the house groups are fighting over, the one with the only parent at all bothered about this. Most of them won't even read the documents and will sign everything because "everybody " does.

This is normal for student house shares. I am guarantor for my son, but it specifies his rent only and I am responsible for that portion if he does not pay it. I definitely wouldn't have signed up if I could potentially be responsible for the whole house as it is over £3k per month.

@Wetellyourstory - I wish I'd known that. I'd have opted for that. I signed the standard agreement, which in retrospect was a daft thing to do.

Labobo, it is a negotiation with the landlord. The landlord might have refused. A lot depends on demand for student accommodation in a particular town.

Seen this go pear shaped so many times!! - nope!!!

No

Never! What if all the other people leave him high and dry?

You only need to be the guarantor for your son, not for the whole household. If you aren't prepared to do that, then your son will need to find someone else to act as guarantor otherwise, as a student, he won't be able to rent the house.

@thriftyhen

You only need to be the guarantor for your son, not for the whole household. If you aren't prepared to do that, then your son will need to find someone else to act as guarantor otherwise, as a student, he won't be able to rent the house.

I see you haven't read the rest of the thread and the issues surrounding joint and several liability

As said above it is a supply and demand issue. If you have students in November (for the following academic year) viewing and 4 groups a day sometimes with my sons in Bristol all fighting to get that 9 person house for year 2 then it is a seller's market and landlords almost universally can insist on the whole house guarantee clause. If instead landlords are lucky to get any student tenants at all that completely changes and students and their parents can start to negotiate about what is guaranteed.

Another issue is not all parents earn enough to be a guarantor. The tests are quite strict. In January my son (who is also a landlord of one house elsewhere) was letting his property and we saw this from the other side - whether the incomes are high enough. The day he completed the sale 3 couples viewed to let the house on that very Friday night and 5 the next day and at least 3 or 4 wanted it. So we were choosing from them rather than begging for tenants.

it is a negotiation with the landlord. The landlord might have refused

Very true. I was fortunate that on every occasion, the landlord agreed. If you don’t ask, you don’t know. I think the bigger issue is so many parents don’t understand the joint and several nature of some tenancy agreements so will not be aware of the potential liability under the guarantee they are signing.

I agree. A landlord often knows very little about prospective tenants. Letting agents always say they are lovely, but the reality can be different. Particularly with students. Some may be hard working, clean and careful, others party loving potheads who you wouldn’t lend a lawnmower to, let alone a house.

So you err on the side of caution using joint and several. Bad tenants are time consuming and expensive. A parent showing they have read the contract, take it seriously and are negotiating would be a reassuring sign. Actually as would a parent who got in touch to say they could not afford to be guarantor. (I would probably ask about loan payment dates and seek a contractual payment schedule to coincide, with bank transfer paperwork prepared in advance). The student wants the flat, the landlord wants to be paid and to have tenants who understand the contractual obligations they are taking on.

I wasn't aware of this. My DS (at Bath Uni) didn't need guarantor in his shared house in the second year. Did he just get lucky? Or does this depend on what part of the country? (He's got another year to go, so I'm glad I read this thread to be prepared!)

No. Not for joint and several tenancy.

I could not afford to cover it. There's no point me gaily signing something when, if the worst came to the worst, I couldn't pay it. I don't blindly hock myself into debts I can't afford.

No no no. We have been sucked in to this. Dont do it

We’re currently on our fourth going through university and have come across this problem many times before. Most landlords we have dealt with have agreed to a limitation clause so that you are only liable for your own child’s rent. This year, however our youngest is in a flatshare of four and we didn’t know any of them. They wouldn’t agree to a limitation clause so we paid six months rent in advance to avoid being jointly and severally liable for the full rent. Given that the situation was so unpredictable and we didn’t know whether anyone would default if they didn’t want to live there due to covid it seemed the best option.
I think this is normally an option if you have the money to do it. They can still chase the student but because they tend not to have any money it is less likely. The other three students all have parent guarantors. So far everyone has paid, they are all in the property despite covid and I don’t anticipate any problems. However, if these things do go wrong it can be very expensive and difficult to resolve.