November 11, 2022 | Mariel Roe
If your tenant doesn’t pass their financial or credit check, or you’re concerned about their ability to pay the rent and bills, you may ask them to provide a guarantor.
Our short guide for landlords will give you valuable insights into some of the questions you should ask a guarantor who has put themselves forward for a tenant.
A guarantor should be someone that owns and lives in their own property in the UK.
If they live abroad, chasing payments can sometimes be tricky. If they don’t own a property in the UK, it can also be challenging to understand their financial situation, credit score, and overall affordability.
This is a great question to ask so that you can understand how familiar the person is with being a guarantor. If they haven’t had this experience, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go ahead. But it does mean you will need to explain the process in more detail to confirm they fully understand the agreement.
If they have been a guarantor before, ask for more details. Find out who it was for and if they ever needed to make any payments for the tenant.
If the guarantor is happy to be responsible for joint tenants, that means they’ll be liable to pay if any or all the other tenants don’t pay.
However, some guarantors may only wish to be responsible for one tenant, so make sure this is clarified and understood.
Essentially, you want to ensure the guarantor has read the agreement and fully understands when they may be liable for payment. While a tenant may have asked the guarantor this question, you’ll want to do your due diligence too, to ensure they are prepared for the commitment.
Usually, you’ll only need to ask the guarantor for payment if the tenant doesn’t pay rent or utilities, or damages the property in a significant way. So, be specific about the circumstances and potential costs to ensure they fully understand their responsibilities.
You’ll need to agree on how long the guarantor agreement will last. If the tenancy agreement is fixed-term, the guarantor can specify whether it will only last for that fixed term – or beyond if it renews or becomes a rolling tenancy.
At Properly, we are your property experts. If you need an expert letting agent or property management services to help market your property and complete tenant referencing checks, our friendly team can help.
Call us today on 0207 459 4400 or browse our letting agent services at https://www.properly.space/.
London Youth work to improve the lives of young people in London, challenging them to become the best they can, and last year helped over 27,000 young people through their sports development, youth action and involvement, arts and outdoor education programmes and employment prospects. We feel strongly that all young people should have an opportunity to develop themselves, and so are delighted to be able to support London Youth in their work, providing young people with access to opportunities they might not otherwise have had, to learn new skills, to make a positive change in their communities and to shape the city they live in.
Glass Door helps homeless men and women in London through their large network of emergency shelters and support services. These winter shelters provide a warm welcome, food, safety and shelter for up to 170 people every night. Properly feels passionately about the issue of homelessness. That is why we are delighted that together with our clients we can assist Glass Door in their fantastic work to help some of the most marginalised people in society.
Families become homeless for reasons we can all identify with. We are concerned about people who are struggling to keep things together in our fast-paced world – and we care about those who have no support. We chose the Doorstep Homeless Family Project because they are passionate and effective yet they are a small team with limited funding. They provide homeless families, living in temporary accommodation in London, with access to services to secure the emotional and practical support they require to enjoy a better quality of life.
We need nature and nature needs us. We support The London Wildlife Trust because we share its concern for the environment. We want to ensure that we keep nature in mind as we work in the property market – and crucially, with people’s homes. We also want our employees to engage with nature and benefit from the wellbeing this brings. London Wildlife Trust cares for over 37 of London’s spaces, and their vision is: “a London alive with nature, where everyone can experience and enjoy wildlife”.
I cannot recommend this estate agent enough. Michael and Mariel have been very good to us throughout the process and have made sure everything has been as smooth as possible. They have gone above and beyond to ensure everything was dealt with and in a timely manner too. A great experience throughout!
Had Michael round for a valuation of our flat – very knowledgeable and friendly and wasn’t pushy at all. When it comes time to sell we’ll definitely be giving Properly a call!
Mariel and Michael have been absolutely great, by far my best ever experience with an estate agent. Properly is honest, upfront and friendly, responding really quickly to any and all queries and with a lovely personal touch.
We did not feel rushed at all which was great as it really allowed us to really take the property in. We did put down an offer and Properly did a great job in securing a good outcome for both the sellers and ourselves.If you are looking for an agency that will do more than just open the door then look no further.
The level of customer service I received at Properly with Mariel and her team was frankly outstanding. It’s lovely when people genuinely care and go the extra mile which certainly they did. I couldn’t recommend them more highly, the most pleasurable property experience ever for me.
We had such an easy and stress free move. Michael helped us with all our questions and was quick to find out any answers to our questions. Would highly recommend.
Michael and Mariel have been very helpful from the time I contacted them on a property I was interested to rent and through the offer process. Mariel did a wonderful video call showing of the house since I was not in London at the time. I felt completely comfortable to sign the lease from the video call. Thank you Mariel!
The service is outstanding. Mariel could not be more helpful and professional. Every individual I engaged with, was well informed and had the full history of conversations. First class service.