Joint Tenancy Guide: Understanding Joint and Several Liability

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Originally published at: Joint Tenancy Guide: Understanding Joint and Several Liability

Joint and several liability is a key concept that every landlord needs to understand, especially when letting to multiple tenants.  It means that if you rent a property to more than one person, each tenant can be held responsible for the full rent and any damages, not just their individual share. For example, if one…

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I think its worth adding the following:

  • there are deeds of guarantee available whose purpose is to limit to their liability to an individual tenant in a joint tenancy. These are available from landlord associations and some solicitors. I’ve never used one, so can’t vouch for their effectiveness.
  • A key element of a joint tenancy is that during the fixed/initial term, the tenants must act together and notice given by an individual tenant is of no effect. Likewise, an individual tenant in a joint tenancy leaving the property does not end their tenancy or liability. This changes once the tenancy becomes rolling periodic and with most contracts, any one tenant can serve notice to end the tenancy for all tenants.
  • The Renters Rights Bill proposes no fixed term tenancies and therefore an individual tenant in a joint tenancy will be able to serve notice from day 1 of the tenancy, ending it for all tenants. This will give little security to the tenants and is also likely to cause problems for landlords of shared houses, especially student landlords.
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Thanks for sharing this David. For now, I’ve updated the article to include ways tenants/landlords can end a joint tenancy in England.

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I’ve managed a joint tenancy with three tenants, and understanding joint and several liability made a huge difference. When one tenant fell behind on rent, I was able to recover the full amount from the others without hassle, which saved a lot of stress.

We also had a guarantor in place, which added an extra layer of security. How do you usually decide whether to go for a joint tenancy or separate room agreements for multiple tenants?

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really? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before and I’ve been on LL forums a fair while. What was the situation?

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Its joint and several liability. Most joint tenants, particularly students, don’t understand that they are taking on the liability for each others tenancy debts.