help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

[pheebs]

hi there!
Looking for any advice please, my chum went guarantor on a lease for his x wife when they separated 3 months ago. he did this on a temporary understanding to help get her and the boys into their own house ass things were goin from bad to worse at home.
He has just been told by the solicitor that is leasing the house to her that he can not give his notice on being a guarantor?
This was not explained to him when he signed the lease, he does not have a copy of the lease at all and also was of the understanding that it was a 6 month lease he signed, he just found out it was a yr lease.
I fully understand that he should have been more careful of what he was doing etc how ever, this was a very stressfull time for him, I wont go into all the details, we are now just looking at all our options.
We are in Scotland so obz need to know what ever the Scottish laws are.

Thanx in advance for any help/advice given

[Kati]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

tagging [MENTION=87380]Diana M[/MENTION] [MENTION=15129]Crazy council[/MENTION] xx

[pheebs]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

sorry but I don't understand your reply????

[Phaeton]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

He/She is tagging a couple of member who he/she feels will be able to assist you in your question

[Crazy council]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

Hi

( just realised its scotland, will check if it changes anything )

These are usualy well tied up documents with the only way out would be by agreement with the landlord, and thats unlikely, there finacing or insurance may require a garuntor for any tenant. The only way usualy would be if she found a suitable garuntor, and you paid for the paperwork to be drawn up.

I suppose it all comes down to risk. If theres a likelyhood that there would be monies owed, ie, tenat not paying rent or causing damage, then you should see if they can find an alternative garuntor before it happens. But, it could also be, that the rents paid for the first year and there is no issuse, then i belive you can withdraw before they resign.

On that though, do make sure you have the terms of the lease properly understood, and that its yearly, not more

Added, some questions.

is it a comercial or residential lease
do they still have assets to split or anything to devide.
can he make an agreement with her that if theres any losses, it would come off any furture maintainece

[Diana M]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

my chum went guarantor on a lease for his x wife when they separated 3 months ago. he did this on a temporary understanding to help get her and the boys into their own house ass things were goin from bad to worse at home.
He has just been told by the solicitor that is leasing the house to her that he can not give his notice on being a guarantor?
This was not explained to him when he signed the lease, he does not have a copy of the lease at all and also was of the understanding that it was a 6 month lease he signed, he just found out it was a yr lease.

Your chum needs to get a copy of the lease/tenancy agreement and a copy of the Guarantor agreement which he signed (who witnessed that?).

Sometimes (but not always) the Guarantor is only legally obligated/liable during the initial fixed term not for eternity.

Is the issue that he will be the Guarantor for twelve months not the six months as he first thought (but not for year-on-year after that)?

The Guarantor is not only liable for any rent not paid but also for any breach of the tenancy agreement such as damage to the property etc.

If he only separated from his "ex wife" three months ago what is the status of any divorce proceedings or has the separation not been formalised? I only ask because if there is a divorce on the cards then all the financial issues may come into play.

You also say that he's been told by the Landlord (?) that he cannot "give notice" as the Guarantor so is there a reason why he feels the need to extricate himself from the arrangement?

Di

[pheebs]

Re: help needed to get out of being a tenancy guarentor

hi, soz for the late reply.

there is a divorce going ahead but not until jan 2018 its an ordinary divorce.

wat concerns me about the guarantor is that my chum was not given a copy of the guarantor agreement, infact he only signed 1 copy not 2, he was also not given a copy of the tenancy agreement, he got to have a quick look through the agreement he signed but not the tenancy agreement so theoretically he has no idea to what he has signed as guarantor for, altho he does know that she has moved into a 4 bed house.

he has also just told me that when she came to him with a standard printed off form from the solicitors which is to be filled in to confirm that she has a guarantor he hand wrote at the bottom that he was only willing to guarantee the amount that was left over that housing benefit did not cover, after the phone call to try and give notice on being guarantor that was when he found out that he had been put as guarantor for the full amount.

should he not have been made aware of that before signing?

so in short, he has no paper work at all so is unaware of any terms and conditions, as he only signed 1 copy of the agreement the solicitor can only give him a copy not an original and I feel he was not made fully aware of what he was signing due to him writing on that form about only guaranteeing part of the rent. yes he was very naïve in what he done and is going to learn the hard way but I do also feel that due to these circumstances there should be a way out.

the main reason that he would like to be out of this agreement is that her new boy friend/partner is now at the house often enough to be classed as living there, but with housing benefit paying rent we are scared that she is now doing benefit fraud which could in the end bring my chum back into having to pay all the rent on the house or even worse and we are unsure what it is we should do.

we are now at a total loss as to what we should do for the best

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there are no real assets to divide and she will not agree to anything come off her maintenance, good idea tho lol