Openrent uses my garantor as a 2nd tenant

Hello all -

Why is it that Openrent treats my garantor as a second tenant to the property I will be renting?
It literally sends correspondence with wording that includes us both as Tenants.

I am not late for payment or anything- I am just at the Deposit payment/ rent upfront stage, and have paid it all, so I don’t understand why it does that.

I had garantors in the past and never had that happened with any Agency.

The landlord told me that it wouldn’t be a Joint Tenancy.
And I don’t expect a garantor to be included as a Joint tenant.

The only thing I wonder is whether it does that because I mentioned I will get help from the DWP to pay the rent as I am in Maternity leave.
However it wasn’t agreed that the garantor would be asked to pay anything when I pay on time.
I would understand if I were not paying but it is absolutely not the case.

Hi Nathalie,

Guarantors will be asked to sign the same tenancy agreement as the tenants, and so become legally liable to cover the rent and/or the cost of damage to the property if the tenant fails to do so.

Most tenancies in the UK are created as Joint Tenancies (whereby several parties are named on one agreement) and it is important to note that this will mean that all parties are jointly liable for all the obligations named in the agreement. In plain English that means that any one tenant or guarantor can be asked to pay the full amount owed by any or all of the other people named on the agreement, should it come to it. Therefore we need to include them in the communication regarding the tenancy.

You can find further information on this topic here:https://www.openrent.co.uk/blog/joint-and-severally-liable-tenancies-a-guide-for-landlords-tenants-and-guarantors/

Kind regards,
Matthew C.

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Why do you need to include them in the communication regarding my Tenancy when I do not fail to make my payments/ do no damage to the property though?
I never had that happened in previous tenancies with my garantor before.

I’d understand that a garantor is contacted when a tenant fails to pay the rent or any damages to the property. But in this instance I don’t understand why he is asked to pay and named in emails as a second tenant.

And so in fact, the Tenancy I signed as a sole tenant is actually a Joint Tenancy?