Your daughter found a flat, and the letting agent has sent you a guarantee agreement to sign. It's a few pages of dense wording that seems to say you'll cover anything that goes wrong, for as long as she lives there. You want to help. You also want to know what you're agreeing to before you put your name to it.
Guarantors didn't disappear under the Renters' Rights Act 2025. A landlord can still ask for one. What changed is the edges of what a guarantor can be chased for, including a new rule that stops you being pursued for rent that falls due after the tenant has died.
Here's what you're on the hook for, what you're not, and what to check before you sign.
Can a landlord still ask for a guarantor in 2026?
Yes. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 did not ban guarantors, and landlords still routinely ask for one where a tenant's income doesn't meet their threshold, where the tenant is a student, or where references are thin.
What a landlord cannot do is use a guarantee as a way around the other new rules. They can't demand several months' rent upfront instead, because rent in advance is now capped at one month. And they can't insist on a guarantor as a backdoor to reject someone because they claim benefits or have children, which is separately unlawful. A guarantor is a genuine option, applied consistently. It isn't a lever to get around the Act.
What is a guarantor liable for on a tenancy?
A guarantor promises to cover the tenant's obligations if the tenant doesn't. In practice that usually means unpaid rent, but a guarantee often reaches further, to things like damage beyond fair wear and tear and cleaning costs the tenant owes at the end.
Two points are worth being clear-eyed about. First, your liability is defined by the wording of the guarantee you sign, so a broad agreement can make you responsible for more than rent. Second, on a joint tenancy, a guarantee can sometimes be written to cover the whole household's rent, not only the person you were vouching for. Read which of those you're signing.
There's a practical ceiling. A guarantor is liable for what the guarantee covers, and a landlord has to prove the debt and recover it within the normal time limit, generally six years for a rent debt, though a guarantee signed as a deed can run longer. A landlord can't invent a figure.
Are you still liable as a guarantor after the tenant dies?
No, for rent that falls due after the death. This is the clearest new protection. Under section 19 of the Renters' Rights Act 2025, where a guarantee was entered into on or after 1 May 2026, it has no effect so far as it covers rent for the period beginning with the tenant's death.
Before this, a parent who guaranteed a child's tenancy could find themselves still liable for months of rent after that child had died, until the tenancy was formally ended. The Act closes that off. From the date of death, the rent stops being your responsibility.
You can still be pursued for what was already owed. Arrears that built up before the death, and damage or cleaning costs that accrued up to that point, remain within the guarantee. It's the rent falling due after the death that drops away.
How does guarantor liability work on a joint tenancy?
This is where it gets a bit more technical, so stick with us. Where you guaranteed a sole tenant, the rule above is simple: on that tenant's death, the guarantee ends for future rent.
Where you guaranteed one of several joint tenants and the tenancy carries on for the survivors, it turns on your relationship to the tenant who died. If you are a family member of the deceased tenant, the guarantee has no effect for rent falling due after their death. If you are not related to them, the guarantee can continue for the surviving tenants' rent, because the tenancy itself continues.
"Family member" is defined broadly. It includes close relatives such as a spouse, civil partner or partner, and a child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew or cousin. So a parent who guaranteed their own child in a four-person house share is released from future rent when that child dies. A family friend who guaranteed someone else's child may not be.
Why can't a landlord demand extra rent in advance instead of a guarantor?
Because the two are governed by separate rules, and one of them now has a hard cap. Since 1 May 2026, a landlord can't require or accept more than one month's rent in advance for a new tenancy. So a landlord who can't get the guarantor they'd like cannot instead demand six months upfront.
This matters for guarantors because it removes a common pressure tactic. In the past, a tenant without a UK guarantor was often told to pay a large lump sum upfront. That route is closed. Our guide on the one month rent in advance rule sets out the cap and how to get excess payments back.
What to check before you sign a guarantee agreement
Read the guarantee up front, while you can still change it. Four things are worth pinning down.
- What it covers. Rent only, or also damage, cleaning, and other costs? The document decides this, so read the scope.
- Whose obligations. On a house share, are you guaranteeing one named tenant or the whole household's rent? Push back if it's the household and you only meant to vouch for one person.
- How it ends. When does your liability stop? A guarantee that runs indefinitely, including through renewals you never see, is worth querying.
- The death clause. For a guarantee signed on or after 1 May 2026, you cannot be chased for rent after the tenant's death. If the document tries to say otherwise, that part has no legal effect.
A clause that overreaches doesn't bind you merely because it's printed in the agreement. If a term contradicts the Act, it can't be enforced against you, and you can say so.
If a guarantee agreement looks like it's asking for more than the law allows, Remedy can review the wording and tell you what you'd genuinely be liable for before you sign.
