Joint and several liability of tenants

This article from Lawpack's Residential Lettings Kit discusses a tenant's liability for rent when more than one person has signed the tenancy agreement.

Where more than one tenant has signed a tenancy agreement, then the general rule is that they will all be 'jointly and severally' liable for the rent.

For example, say four students (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are renting a house together and they all sign the same tenancy agreement for a total rent of £400 per month.

They will no doubt have agreed between themselves that they will each pay £100 per month. However, if one of the four tenants, Mark, then stops paying his share (for example, if he leaves the house) the landlord is entitled to claim the outstanding rent from any of the tenants, not just from Mark. The landlord is not bound by the tenants' own agreement to pay £100 each. So if one of the tenants, say John, is wealthy, the landlord can sue just John, and get a judgment against him for the outstanding rent, even though he has paid his share.

Also, if the landlord has taken a guarantee from the students' parents (as is often done in student lets), he can normally claim the whole of any outstanding rent from any one parent guarantor, as the parent will effectively be guaranteeing the whole of the rent, not just his son's share.

This can be avoided by limiting the guarantor's liability, for example, to a specified sum of money.

20 August 2008