As the guarantor, does my mum have a right to let herself in whenever she wants?

ACG

Is your mum down as a guarantor or joint tenant on the Tenancy Agreement?

If she is 100% a guarantor then no, she has no rights to a key.
If she is a joint tenant on the paperwork then yes she probably does.

bengalknights

A guarantor has no rights, a joint tenant does.

[Deleted User]

Change the locks on your property (plenty of videos on how to change the cylinder on Youtube) but also have a word with your mother. I guess she will see the state of your place differently to you. But it should be up to you to either live with it, or tidy it up when you decide to (remember the LL could decide not to renew the tenancy if they feel the place isn't being looked after, try to keep the mess to a dull roar, no odours). If you have a mass clean up every few months it will be difficult to restore the place to as it was when you moved in. Grime tends to 'grind in' to carpets and walls. But its your choice. Problem is, if the LL decides to ask for cleaning costs or damage, it may well be your mother paying the bill, so she is going to be worried about that.

Remember that your mother might have lots of tips on the easiest way to clean up (again, see youtube for cleaning hacks). She may have decided you need some help cleaning it up, trying to make life easy for you. But of course, she should not have asked nor been given a key.

Bear in mind if you need a guarantor next time, your mother might not be so keen to volunteer. I know what my 22 year old is like, there is no way on earth I'd be a guarantor for him. He asked last year. Fortunately I knew I wouldn't be acceptable as a guarantor anyway, but even if I had of been, I wouldn't have. I provided the deposit for his first place, big hole in it when it was returned. He decided to clean it up himself, I wasn't invited to the party so didn't have chance to do it properly. So, it won't happen again.

MoneySeeker1

I agree re changing the locks. Your landlady shouldn't have provided a key to anyone other than you. If your mother wanted a key, then she should have asked you and not the landlady. As for throwing your things out when she let herself in, that is so not on. It wasn't up to your mother to evaluate what was and what wasn't "rubbish". I do know mothers can be intrusive, as I certainly had to do some very firm talking to my mother to deal with her doing this and also get my father to tell her off as well.

If you have a reasonable/fair-minded father, then I suggest you tell him what his wife/your mother is like and get him to tell her to stop invading your privacy.

I had to up the pressure to stop my mother in her tracks by literally refusing to have anything to do with her ever again until she stopped this sort of stuff and I meant it. My father had to act as intermediary between us to explain to her just how upset I was/how unreasonable she had been before she stopped this sort of thing and then I started talking to her again.

hazyjo

I call that it's absolutely nothing to do with renting, tenancies, rights, guarantors, etc, but just the way your mum is.

I know this, because my mum's the same.

She always has a spare key for when she's come round to sort the cats if I've been away, or just for emergencies. I own my house (ie not rented).

She once let herself in and tidied up my rather messy house (I had lots of clothes strewn across the floor and too many empty bottles out in the kitchen lol). I was in my late 30s. God knows what I had left out. I shudder at the thought lol.

She thinks she's being 'helpful' and 'kind'. I don't. She does it to my sister too (been with her partner over 25 years with 3 grown up kids). She did it to me growing up too. My bedroom was never my own and she would 'tidy up' and bin stuff. I used to go crazy. It's prob why I hate throwing anything out now and battle with my OH about all the books and mags I keep.

Thankfully she has only done it when I've been single. My OH now is mega-tidy (ah, I lie, I just remembered one time when she (1) checked the oven and criticised it; and (2) pulled out the sofa and moaned about crumbs/food traces down the side/underneath. My OH is a house husband so she was basically criticising his standards of cleanliness/tidiness.

Patience. Tolerance. Boundaries. The only 3 words of advice. She will take offence, so tread carefully.

Cakeguts

hazyjo wrote: »

I call that it's absolutely nothing to do with renting, tenancies, rights, guarantors, etc, but just the way your mum is.

I know this, because my mum's the same.

She always has a spare key for when she's come round to sort the cats if I've been away, or just for emergencies. I own my house (ie not rented).

She once let herself in and tidied up my rather messy house (I had lots of clothes strewn across the floor and too many empty bottles out in the kitchen lol). I was in my late 30s. God knows what I had left out. I shudder at the thought lol.

She thinks she's being 'helpful' and 'kind'. I don't. She does it to my sister too (been with her partner over 25 years with 3 grown up kids). She did it to me growing up too. My bedroom was never my own and she would 'tidy up' and bin stuff. I used to go crazy. It's prob why I hate throwing anything out now and battle with my OH about all the books and mags I keep.

Thankfully she has only done it when I've been single. My OH now is mega-tidy (ah, I lie, I just remembered one time when she (1) checked the oven and criticised it; and (2) pulled out the sofa and moaned about crumbs/food traces down the side/underneath. My OH is a house husband so she was basically criticising his standards of cleanliness/tidiness.

Patience. Tolerance. Boundaries. The only 3 words of advice. She will take offence, so tread carefully.

I have a theory about mothers like this. They don't actually come to tidy. They come so that they can go through all your stuff. My mother used her only visit to our house to "tidy" it. She also did it to my brother on several occasions when she visited him. This behaviour seriously annoyed my sister in law. My mother had a personality disorder so it was impossible to get her to stop doing anything that she wanted to do.



No one has the right to "tidy" another adults house regardless of how they are related to that adult. It is an invasion of privacy.



OP if you have the kind of mother who doesn't listen to what you want or respect your boundaries the only way to deal with it is to change the locks and not give her another key.

hazyjo

Cakeguts wrote: »

I have a theory about mothers like this. They don't actually come to tidy. They come so that they can go through all your stuff. My mother used her only visit to our house to "tidy" it. She also did it to my brother on several occasions when she visited him. This behaviour seriously annoyed my sister in law. My mother had a personality disorder so it was impossible to get her to stop doing anything that she wanted to do.

My mum really is just obsessively tidy (and weirdly does tend to respect privacy and would never have read my diary or anything) :rotfl:


Sadly my OH can be similar. I've never been so bloody tidy in my life!

Silvertabby

“ I have a theory about mothers like this. They don't actually come to tidy. They come so that they can go through all your stuff. My mother used her only visit to our house to "tidy" it. She also did it to my brother on several occasions when she visited him. This behaviour seriously annoyed my sister in law. My mother had a personality disorder so it was impossible to get her to stop doing anything that she wanted to do.
Originally posted by Cakeguts ”

My late mum would have done this - had it not been for the fact that we lived 2 hours drive away! To her, nosiness was a much loved hobby.

Davesnave

My parents weren't obsessively tidy, but they didn't respect my 'collections' when they moved to a large house at a time when I was working 150 miles away.

They just gave many of my belongings to the local secondary school!

Admittedly, some of this stuff, acquired by me as a child interested in anything old, may have looked like junk, but it wasn't. Some items would be worth a lot now.

I still have a set of books they didn't give away, mainly because they were in old English and virtually unreadable. They were last valued about 25 years ago and then worth around £2k. Apparently Americans were then buying them and cutting out the plates and maps to hang on their walls, so intact copies were increasing in value.

Hopefully, the yanks have carried on with their vandalism. I must find out!

Hectors_House

Davesnave wrote: »

My parents weren't obsessively tidy, but they didn't respect my 'collections' when they moved to a large house at a time when I was working 150 miles away.

They just gave many of my belongings to the local secondary school!

Admittedly, some of this stuff, acquired by me as a child interested in anything old, may have looked like junk, but it wasn't. Some items would be worth a lot now.

I still have a set of books they didn't give away, mainly because they were in old English and virtually unreadable. They were last valued about 25 years ago and then worth around £2k. Apparently Americans were then buying them and cutting out the plates and maps to hang on their walls, so intact copies were increasing in value.

Hopefully, the yanks have carried on with their vandalism. I must find out!

My folks had a big bonfire when we went back to the UK for a holiday.

Years later they saw things coming up on programmes about antiques that they had destroyed.

The one thing that really hurt was a big folder of photographic negatives from a project I did with my sister.

How do you put that on a fire not realising what it was??!!

My mother had a personality disorder and a great need for control. We eventually had to ban her from our house. To this day things are still missing.

OP, you need to set boundaries now and nip this in the bud.