This is a question to the blog clinic from Serena on behalf of her builder
My builder, Dave, agreed to be guarantor for his son and his girlfriend on an AST which commenced March 2011 with a fixed term of a year. His son moved out following their break up and his girlfriend has moved a new man in.
Dave says that the agent is well aware of these change in circumstances but has told him that he must remain guarantor until the end of the tenancy. The son says that he wrote to the agent informing them that he’d moved out.
Can anyone tell me what to advise Dave to remove his name as guarantor and force the letting agent to issue a new contract to the girlfriend and her present boyfriend?
If the tenancy was for a year and started last March then surely the fixed term has now ended? The boyfriend should therefore serve a formal notice to quit on the landlord (or his agent). This will, assuming the fixed term has ended, end the tenancy completely. So neither the son nor the guarantor (depending on the terms of the guarantee deed) will be liable any more.
If the girlfriend and her boyfriend carry on living at the property and paying rent, then a new periodic tenancy will be implied between them and the landlord, and probably it will be implied that this will be on the same terms and conditions as the preceding one.
But Dave and his son will be ‘off the hook’.
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If YOU have a problem, why not put it to the blog clinic? However there are a lot of questions submitted, so if you need an answer quickly remember that members of my Landlord Law service can ask me questions in the members forum area, and will normally get an answer with 24 hours.