Hello,
if anyone has any links or can provide any information i would be extremely grateful. I am not at the place yet where I can rent again but I do want to gather as much information as I possibly can.
What are the correct steps when you set up the guarantor agreement.?
At the end of term (4 months/6 months/year etc) what happens to your agreement with the guarantor?
Can you have more than 1 guarantor, if so who do you chase for recovery.?
Is guarantors liability limited to amount of deposit?
What if guarantor moves abroad, dies or something mid tenancy?
What if guarantor was actually not real, so tenant gives name of guarantor (maybe company director or business owner) then it turns out the company was in the process of being struck off. (I can’t think of a better example but my Q is to understand what assurances/protection of the validity)
Repossession/eviction is not a pathway I want to have to go down again but I don’t want to get caught out finding my safety net (guarantor) has holes in it and put me back to where i want to avoid being.
Lastly does the guarantor have any rights for example if tenant is employed then goes to benefits are they then absolved due to change in circumstances or any loopholes etc.
Any information appreciated, I have a feeling its not quite as cut and dry as it might first appear.
This link/article what is a guarantor doesn’t help much, it focusses on covering rent but I could buy insurance to cover rent, I want to know about damage to property liabilities, costs to take court action security. With holding rent would be a concern but there are many more parts to tenancy than just paying rent.
I am weighting up insurance and guarantor.
NRLA have quite good information on guarantor agreements. There are lots of things to get right, most especially that they must be signed as a deed, with all that entails. Too many things to go into now, but suffice it to say, its best to take a tenant that doesnt need one as there are no guarantees that a court will uphold one.
I use a standard guarantor form and always try to get one, however the guarantor may be a tenant themselves, they may be ficticious, they might move etc so try and get a guarantor if you can but again trying to recover money thru the courts is loaded against the landlord vis a vis proof etc and by the time you have done court fees and time its kind of not worth it.
the only payment i have ever got back from the court is unpaid rent, judges tend to wave aside anything else. Having been to court maybe 15 times covering 1000 tenancies over the years i have come to the conclusion the law only benefits the people being paid to be there. The bias is heavily in favour of tradespeople and tenants. I have had flats trashed and gone with several witnesses to attest just to come away from court with just a months unpaid rent awarded which is then not paid.
God its absolutely terrifying. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply.
It really helps to find out and enquire, my eyes have opened even wider than before as to what the reality of this is.
I think insurance will be a safer option to turn to than guarantor.
and noted, A1 tenants vetted to the hilt who really don’t need one then add guarantor on top to keep them mindful they have roped someone else into it and hope they don’t know how useless having a guarantor really is.
I just pray this S21 debacle never makes it over the line. I read an article posted over a decade ago about the pitfalls of S8 and here I am having gone through the same hell.