My husband is going to be guarantor for my son

Errata

The bottom line is the letting agents are not convinced either him or his GF can/will pay the rent, so they want a guarantor who will pay it if they can't/don't.
Can you afford to cover even one month's rent ? If you can't, then explain to your OH what he may be letting himself in for. He may not be a great reader, but he needs to be a great thinker on this.

diggle

Thanks Errata,
I think my husband did not want to discuss this with me as he knew i would not want us to commit to this.
We are in the throws of changing our mortgage ,so we will be paying a larger amount and every penny will count.
I am waiting for oh to get home from work,so we can discuss this further.Have just smoked a cig,something i have not done in 5 yrs,there is alittle niggle in the back of my head telling me this guarantor thing is not good.
What other options will there be for my son though?

Eton_Rifle

So assuming there's nothing lurking in your son's credit history (are you sure he's not been having issues with those store cards?)

Asking for a guarantor means the landlord thinks there's a chance the rent won't be paid. So either your son or this girl or both have something about their circumstances that's causing these these doubts.

It's not just about your son. You're being asked to shoulder the risk for the girl as well and in your shoes, again assuming your son has no issues, I would want to find out about this girl before I underwrote her spending habits.

Does she work? Had she had financial problems in the past?
Has she got access to your son's money?
Can your son's pay cover the rent and bills if she starts to flounder?

shop-to-drop

If it were my son and I wanted to help him and trusted him not to take advantage I would work out all their finances with them. Work out an estimate of how much they will have coming in and what outgoings they have. If I then felt that they were in a position to afford the place I would go ahead and be guarantor if however it looked risky and they were going to struggle to pay from the beginning I would refuse and tell them to go find a place within their means. For instance they could rent a room in a shared house as a couple.

pleasedelete

He is your son. If he was ill would you also want him to be homeless?

I think that most parents would do anything for their children. He has no poor credit and all he is asking is that you underwrite him. You mention an accident or illness surely if that happened he would come before hanging onto your savings?

Sorry but I am just amazed that this is an issue. He is your son!!!

diggle

How can we tell our son ,we cannot do this.He will think its down to me.
I really cannot say for sure about store cards obviously,i don't see his mail.
Petty argument is only over he had a tattoo[can't believe i am writing this,never thought he would get a tattoo]problem is i truly loathe the he knew this ,and whilst he is a 26yr old adult i never thought he would be so stupid.

PasturesNew

Eton_Rifle wrote: »

I'd be wondering why your son is unable to secure a tenancy without providing a guarantor, thus indicating a higher than usual level of default risk.

It's not unusual to find the slightest reason. I'd be asked for a guarantor - and have been asked for one. And it gets more and more common, just because they can.

xxmatt1980xx

The reason the letting agency need a guarantor is worth investigating here.

It is not necessarily the case that they are worried about your son not paying the rent.

My letting agency ask everyone for a UK based home-owner to act as a guarantor. I wasn't happy with this, but as I knew I had the money to pay for the rent, the house was lovely, and my mum was willing to act as a guarantor I went ahead. If this is the case, he should consider using a different agent (this will mean finding a different house of course).

Other letting agents have required a guarantor from me because I didn't have a full-time, permanent job. Is your son's bar job permanent, perhaps this is the reason?

It could of course be that your son's credit rating is shot through CCJs etc and they want a guarantor for that reason.

It's certainly worth investigating (or getting your husband to investigate) the reasons the agent need a guarantor before agreeing to this.

My advice with being a guarantor is that as you are liable for the rent on this property then you should have the spare money available to pay the rent on this property for the entire period of the lease (I assume it will be 6 or 12 months in this case).

PasturesNew

The best bet is to offer six months' rent up front. If your son offers that to the agents - and you lend him the six months' rent, paying you back each rent day, then after six months he won't need a guarantor and your total exposure is six months' rent if he fails to pay you back.

diggle

Please delete.
to a degree i agree with you.Just feel really uneasy about this.He is our son but he is also an adult now,if he cannot afford this rent and needs a guarantor ,then surely that can't be right,can it?