Guarantors in a UK tenancy: when to ask and how they work

A guarantor promises to pay if your tenant does not. Since 1 May 2026 a guarantee signed on or after that date stops covering rent that falls due after a sole tenant dies, and asking some applicants for a guarantor while waving others through can breach the discrimination rules that started the same day. Ask for one where there is a real, evidenced gap in income, and get it signed before the tenancy starts.

What a guarantor is actually agreeing to

A guarantee is a separate contract. The tenant rents the property, and a third party, usually a parent or sometimes an employer, promises the landlord that if the tenant fails to pay, they will. Most guarantee documents go wider than rent alone and pick up damage beyond fair wear and tear, unpaid bills the tenant is liable for, and the landlord's reasonable costs of recovering the money. The scope is whatever the document says it is. Which means the document matters more than anything else on this page.

Two things people routinely get wrong. A guarantor is not a co-tenant: no right to live there, no right to keys, no automatic right to be told everything that happens. And a guarantee does not quietly lapse at the end of the first year. There are no fixed terms in the private rented sector any more, so if the wording covers the tenancy for as long as it runs, that is exactly what it does.

What changed on 1 May 2026

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 added a new section to the Housing Act 1988 dealing with guarantors and death. It bites on guarantees entered into on or after 1 May 2026, and it works like this.

• Single tenant, and that tenant dies: the guarantee has no effect for rent covering the period from the death onwards.
• Joint tenants, and all of them die: same result, running from the last death.
• Joint tenants, and the guarantor is a family member of one of them: the guarantee stops covering rent from that family member's death, even though the tenancy continues for the survivors.
• Rent for the period in which the death falls is split by days, so the guarantor covers the days up to the death and nothing beyond it.

The definition of family member is generous. It reaches spouses, civil partners and cohabitees, and children, grandchildren, parents, grandparents, siblings including half and step siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins, on either side of the guarantor's relationship. The section applies whether or not the guarantee is in writing and whether or not it sits inside the tenancy agreement itself, so you cannot draft around it. Arrears that had already built up before the death are not wiped out. What the law removes is future rent.

Guarantees signed before 1 May 2026 are not caught. If you are still leaning on an older document, read it properly before you rely on it.

When you can ask, and when asking becomes a problem

Nothing says a landlord must never ask for a guarantor. The rule is about applying the requirement selectively. Sections 33 and 34 of the Act make it unlawful for a landlord or an agent to apply a provision, criterion or practice designed to make benefits claimants, or people who would have a child living with them or visiting, less likely to get the tenancy. Demanding a guarantor from every applicant on housing support while letting salaried applicants through without one is precisely the shape of practice those sections were written for. So is asking a family with two children for a guarantor when a couple on the same income would not be asked.

The defensible position is a written affordability policy that applies to everybody, is built on the amount of income rather than the source of it, and counts benefit income as income. If an applicant falls short of the threshold, the guarantor request follows from the arithmetic and not from who they are. Write the policy down, apply it the same way every time, and keep the reference reports. If you let to tenants receiving housing support, our guide on renting to tenants on benefits covers the wider position.

Why guarantors carry more weight than they used to

Landlords used to have two levers for a borderline applicant. Ask for a lump of rent up front, or ask for a guarantor. The first one has largely gone. Since 1 May 2026 a landlord cannot require more than one month's rent in advance, and cannot take any rent at all before the agreement is signed. Six months up front is off the table, including where the applicant offers it themselves. That leaves the guarantee doing most of the heavy lifting, which is a good reason to stop treating the form as an afterthought. The same set of reforms closed off bidding above the advertised rent, which we covered in the piece on the rental bidding ban.

Getting the document right

• Put it in writing and have the guarantor sign it. A verbal promise to stand behind someone's rent is close to worthless when you need it.
• Sign it before or at the same time as the tenancy. If a guarantee is bolted on weeks later, there may be nothing given in return for the promise, which is why a later guarantee is normally executed as a deed. A deed has to say on its face that it is a deed, be signed by the guarantor, and have that signature witnessed at the moment of signing.
• Wet signatures with the witness in the room remain the least argued-over route. Electronic signing is possible, but keep the full audit trail if you go that way.
• Spell out the scope. Rent only, or rent plus damage and costs? The whole rent on a joint tenancy, or one named tenant's share?
• Send the guarantor their own copy, together with a copy of the tenancy agreement. A guarantor who has never seen the terms they guaranteed is a defence waiting to happen.

Checking the guarantor properly

A guarantee is only worth what you could realistically recover. Reference the guarantor the way you would reference a tenant: identity, income, and whether they own or rent. Someone with no assets and a modest wage is a comfort blanket rather than security, and it is better to know that in week one than in month nine. On a joint tenancy, decide up front whether each guarantor stands behind the whole rent or a single share, then say so in writing. The two positions look very different the day one tenant moves out and the others cannot cover the gap.

What happens if the rent actually stops

Chase the tenant first, and tell the guarantor early. A guarantor who first hears about it at three months' arrears is a great deal less cooperative than one who got a phone call in week two. Keep a clean rent ledger, because arrears figures get tested. The mandatory arrears ground now needs at least three months of arrears, or thirteen weeks where rent is paid weekly or fortnightly, both on the day the notice is served and again at the hearing, and the notice period is four weeks. Universal credit housing payments that are late through no fault of the tenant are left out of the sum. That is a long runway. A guarantor who clears the balance in month two saves everybody the trip.

Before you ask for one

A guarantee fixes one thing: a shortfall in income. It does not fix a poor previous landlord reference, an unexplained gap in employment history or a right to rent problem, and it is not a substitute for reading the application. Ask for a guarantor when the sums do not quite work and everything else stacks up. If you would rather not run the referencing and the paperwork yourself, comparing local firms through the AgentCheck directory is a sensible place to start.

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