Evening all,
I’m looking for some advice. I’m hoping to move into renting independently, but as an autistic person I’ve been finding the process quite challenging.
After speaking with and contacting several estate agents, I’ve been advised that on a salary of £29,000 I do not currently meet the income threshold required to rent a flat. A few agents mentioned a scheme called Rent Guarantor as a possible option.
I wanted to ask whether this scheme could help in my situation, and whether it is something this website supports, or if acceptance is entirely at the landlord’s discretion.
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
we use a figure of monthly income > 3 x monthly rent to work out rough affordability. At that income, you’re looking at a monthly rent of no more than £805 per month (29000/12/3). You’d find a flat in the northeast of England easily with that rent. What are rents for flats you’re looking at?
A guarantor simply steps in if you can’t pay the rent as they’d be legally liable. It doesn’t somehow make a place affordable in the first place so I think you may have been misinformed about that. If the rent is higher than £800 pcm, you’re very unlikely to find a landlord who’ll consider you where you are and will have to look elsewhere.
@Mohammed19
Well @mod_harry may be able to answer for OR officially
The agents may mean that your income is below the standard affordability criteria based on income but if you find a guarantor a landlord may be able to rent to you anyway because if you cant pay the rent the guarantor becomes responsible. There are firms which act as a guarantor for you, for a fee. Of course there is a cost so eg the firm housinghand charges £36 every month.
If your income is too low you will likely fail the OR referencing/affordability checks. In this case OR will not offer the landlord rent guarantee insurance so you are more risky
In that circumstance the landlord may be willing to accept a guarantor (person or firm) instead if they can afford.
OR has nothing to do with supporting your use of a guarantor or a guarantor firm nor do they not support. The decision on whom to rent to is entirely the landlord’s.
Good luck
Good Morning,
Many thanks for your response. I think in this case i need contact and reach out to the landord and explain and hope for the best. But thank you for taking time out to respond. I have messaged a few landloards on here explaining my situation and the organisation i was recomednded/
Thank You once again
Well Mohammed, in all likelihood, you are going to find this a very difficult challenge. You haven’t mentioned what rents are on flats you’re looking at. If they’re around £850 then it’s possible that a LL will ignore the fact that you’re just below the threshold. But with the new RRA, LLs are more cautious about taking tenants with risks than ever before, particularly if affordability is an issue because it’s just become much more complicated and lengthy to evict a tenant who does not pay rent in full.
I’ve been accused on here of being too kind a LL to my tenants, but even I would turn you down immediately if you were even a fraction below the affordability figure for one of my places. It’s tough out there, but there are cheaper places to live in the UK as I’ve mentioned.
Hi,
Thank you for your honestly I think I may just give up and due to work commitment I need to stay in west London buts it’s okay I’ll close this. But see what happens.
I assume ghe £29,000 salary is gross, so yhe monthly take home is going to be less with a consequent hit on affordability.
I thought the calculation assumed a gross income automatically. I’ve never used net income to run affordability calculations… partly because it’s virtually impossible for me to know what deductions a particular applicant might have from their income.
1 Like
Actually you may be right. Ive always used the other one gross annual salary should be 30x monthly rent, which would actually make it higher - around £966 a month.
Please ignore my earlier unhelpful post.