Guarantor Student Accommodation

[Joshski28]

Hoping for some advice from experienced legal minds.

My SD is finalising her final year uni accommodation which is a shared 9 bedroom house. Her and 2 friends (who we don’t know) have signed the rental agreement which outlines that they are the tenants and their 3 rooms constitute the household. They have 3 rooms on the top floor of the property.

She’s asked my OH to act as guarantor. He’s is paying her rent anyway and would not be an issue to guarantee the rent if it were not for the concern that it looks like he’s guaranteeing the rent for all 3 girls.

The agreement lays out the annual rent for all 3 rooms and the Ts and Cs say they are the household. If the tenants default after 8 weeks they then go after the guarantor.

My DS has said the 2 others have guarantors but we are not sure how the agent would decide which guarantor they would pick if one of the 2 others defaulted.

Is there anything we can do in the guarantor agreement to limit liability to just DS rent?

Thanks

I'd just sign it. If one of the other tenants defaults and they choose to go after you it is likely you'd be able to get the defaulter's guarantor drawn in to the court proceedings as the court would expect the landlord to enforce against them first. Just make sure that the other guarantors have sufficient means to pay.

Thanks.

That is our concern; we are not sure that one of the guarantors would be in a position to cover their portion of the rent.

Then don't sign, as the landlord is putting you in an impossible position.

The problem you will face is that most student accommodation is like this. The tenants are normally jointly severally liable for the rent, so any one of the tenants can be pursued for the whole amount. Any guarantor is therefore potentially liable for all the rent. There is some student accommodation that handles things differently so you may be lucky but you may struggle to find anything that doesn't require a similar guarantee.

jointly and severally

Thanks for the advice. We thought as much with regard to the jointly and severally liable being very much the norm nowadays.

It is and it isn't. My DS was presented with a tenancy that wanted joint and several liability for the guarantors. The landlord can select which guarantor they go after. Rent for the whole property for the year would have been £27k. As we are both solicitors there is a good chance they would have thought we were the best bet (and actually probably were). The other parents did not even realise what joint and several liability meant. Anyway we wouldn't sign and they found a property nearby which ended up being better that did not require a guarantee.

Another way round it (although the child may remain liable for the remainder) is to pay upfront for your child's share. Then quite often they will not require you to guarantee.