I have a 3 bed house in the UK that is up for rental soon and have been approached by 2 individuals who love the property and want to rent but only want to be responsible for their rent individually which equates to 2/3rds of the full rental value.

They will look for a 3rd person and upon finding someone all rent will be covered and they will sign a single tenancy agreement but the two individuals only want to be responsible for their own rent. Im reluctant to draw up individual agreements it has many other implications (council tax being my responsibility, being one of them).

Im in two minds whether to rent it to them or not as they seem very nice responsible people but having each individual being repsonsible for their own rent could prove to be a pain in the posterior. Has anyone else been in a similar predicament? or can offer advice on the matter...

Hi James

It sounds to me like these two don't trust one another - which suggests you shouldn't either! Are they friends?

Are you letting the house as one "package" (ie, the property is available to let for £x per month)? Then I think you should insist on one tenancy agreement and one monthly payment for the total, no matter who / how many are moving in.

Let them deal with the split themselves.

If you go down the two or more tenancy agreement route aren't you then a HMO landlord with all the rules and regs that entails?

Sounds like too much hassle with these two to me.

Theyre happy to sign the one agreement that covers the three of them, which means Im not a HMO landlord, however they insist on 3 individual payments.

In the worst case scenario, 3 months down the line and 1 of them stops paying means I can still terminate the contract, I think, since the individual payments is just a verbal agreement. Or does it?

Thanks for your thougts Ben, it does sound like they dont trust each other. I think Ill meet them and make a call on the matter then.

Hi James,

My opinion for what its worth, is that I would not go-ahead. You sum it up well, about 3 months down the line, and 1 of them cancelling.

I house, 1 tenancy agreement, and 1 payment. I would not get caught up in 3 separate rents...sounds like you will be doing all the chasing!

I am sure you will have loads of others interested...I would tell them that rental demand is the strongest in 5 years, rents are rising fast, and if they want to live in your place, they need to agree today, or you find someone else.

Cheers
Chris.

I rent my student properties on Joint Tenancy agreements but they all pay seperate payments by Standing Order - quite normal procedure. They each have individual guarantors - essential. If one is late paying I just write to them all including Guarantors and it always works very quickly.

I was very very glad of the Joint Tenancy agreement recently when one student left out of a group of 5 and found a replacement who the others didn't want to live with (not a student and much older than them). The father of the student who left happened to be a London Solicitor and got very nasty, insisting that he didn't have to pay the rent and I had no right to refuse to accept the replacement tenant his son had found. I used the free legal services of the Guild of Residential Landlords which I subscribe to and in one fantastic letter outlining all the case law regarding Joint Tenancies the London HotShot Solicitor climbed down and now pays the rent for his absent son, I only have 4 tenants at present but the rent is still paid.

Joint Tenancies are much less work.

I don't think it makes a difference what type of tenancy agreement you have regarding the HMO situation, it is about how many people share the house that are not living as a family.

Hi

Thought I would just underline this one slightly. Firstly, an AST implies exclusive possession of their part of a dwelling for the tenant (note singular). Joint-tenants are effectively treated as a single tenant, so each is liable for the other, financially (for rent) and under other tenancy obligations. This is several liability in its simplest form.

Confusing the tenancy by adding terms that make each joint-tenant individually responsible for his or her own portion of the rent would undermine and - at best - confuse established legal routes to recovery of arrears and possession, should it be required.

I also agree with earlier comments that by granting exclusive possession of a portion of the property, such as bedroom (in return for individual liability of part of the overall rent), you could open yourself up to HMO status - something to be avoided at all cost, unless you really want to go down that route.

My advice, keep it simple and have severally liable joint tenants under the traditional arrangement and don't offer any secondary terms (written or otherwise) that infer any variation on the AST's several liability. The latter would almost certainly void your tenancy agreement, if a case ever went before a county court judge.

Tony booth