Guarantor Agreement for Tenants in England: What to Include

A solid guarantor agreement template is one of the most useful documents an England landlord can keep on file, and one of the easiest to get wrong. A guarantor promises to cover the tenant’s obligations (usually rent, sometimes damage) if the tenant defaults. But a loosely worded or improperly executed agreement can be unenforceable at the exact moment you need it most: in court, chasing arrears. This guide explains, clause by clause, what a guarantor agreement must contain in 2026, why it should be a deed of guarantee rather than a simple contract, and how it now has to work alongside the rolling periodic tenancies introduced by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025.

Why a guarantor agreement template needs extra care after the RRA

Since the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 came into force on 1 May 2026, there are no fixed-term assured shorthold tenancies in England. Every assured tenancy is now periodic from the outset (see our explainer on what a periodic tenancy is). That single structural change has a direct knock-on effect on guarantor agreements that most off-the-shelf templates have not caught up with.

Old templates were typically drafted to guarantee the tenant’s obligations “for the term of the tenancy”, meaning a defined six or twelve-month fixed period. With no fixed term in existence, that wording is now ambiguous: does the guarantee expire at the end of the first rent period, or does it continue for as long as the tenant remains in the property? A guarantee that does not clearly state how long it lasts can be argued down to almost nothing by a guarantor’s solicitor, and you may discover the weakness only after a tenant has run up months of arrears. Your template must therefore be drafted specifically for a rolling periodic tenancy and state, in plain terms, exactly when the guarantor’s liability starts and when it ends.

There is a second, more subtle reason the RRA matters here. Because tenancies no longer have a natural end date, a guarantee can in principle run on indefinitely. A guarantor who signs up expecting to back “a year’s rent” can end up exposed for several years if the tenant simply stays. Courts look closely at whether a guarantor genuinely understood an open-ended commitment, so your wording and your process around signing both need to be defensible.

What did not change

It helps to be clear about what the Renters’ Rights Act did not do. The Act did not ban guarantors, did not cap how much a guarantor can be asked to cover, and did not change the basic law of guarantees and deeds. So a guarantor remains a legitimate and important tool, you just have to draft the document for the new tenancy structure.

Deed or simple contract? Use a deed

A guarantee can take the form of a simple contract or a deed. For a tenancy guarantee, you should almost always use a deed. Here is why the distinction matters so much:

• A simple contract needs consideration, something of value passing to the guarantor in exchange for their promise. If the guarantor signs only after the tenancy has already started, there may be no fresh consideration, and the guarantee can fail entirely on that technical ground.
• A deed is enforceable without consideration, provided it is executed correctly. That single feature removes the most common argument guarantors use to escape liability.
• A deed also gives you a longer window to bring a claim: twelve years rather than six under the Limitation Act 1980. If a tenant defaults late in a long tenancy, that extra time can be decisive.

For a deed to be valid, it must be clear on its face that it is intended to take effect as a deed, it must be signed by the guarantor, and that signature must be witnessed by an independent adult who also signs and adds their name and address. The witness must not be a party to the document, so not the tenant, not the landlord, and not another guarantor. Get the execution wrong and the entire document can be void, leaving you with nothing to enforce.

What a guarantor agreement template must include

A guarantor agreement (a deed of guarantee) for an England tenancy should contain the following building blocks. Treat this as your checklist when reviewing any template.

1. The parties

Full legal names and current addresses of the landlord, the tenant(s) and the guarantor. If there are joint tenants, state explicitly whether the guarantor is backing one named tenant only or all of the tenants jointly and severally. This single point causes more disputes than almost any other: a guarantor who thought they were covering their own son’s share can be horrified to find they are liable for the whole rent on a four-person house share.

2. The property and the tenancy

Identify the let property by its full address and reference the tenancy agreement it relates to, by date and by the names of the parties. This ties the guarantee to a specific, identifiable obligation. A guarantee that floats free of any particular tenancy is far harder to enforce.

3. A clear statement of what is guaranteed

Spell out exactly what the guarantor is liable for. Typically this covers:

• Rent arrears, including any lawful future increases (more on this below);
• Damage to the property beyond fair wear and tear;
• Other breaches that cost the landlord money, for example cleaning costs, or unpaid utility bills the tenant had agreed to cover;
• Reasonable costs of recovering the above, where the deed says so.

Avoid open-ended catch-all phrases. The more precisely you define the guaranteed obligations, the more enforceable the agreement, because a court can see plainly what the guarantor agreed to stand behind.

4. Duration of liability, the critical clause

Because tenancies are now periodic and open-ended, your template must state how long the guarantee lasts. The realistic options are:

• The guarantee continues for as long as the tenant remains in occupation under the tenancy (and any statutory continuation of it); or
• The guarantee is limited to a capped period or a capped monetary sum agreed at the outset.

Be aware that a guarantor’s liability does not automatically end just because the tenant gives notice or moves out, it ends when the tenancy itself ends, or as the deed otherwise provides. If a tenant leaves owing arrears, the guarantor remains on the hook for that debt. State all of this clearly so the guarantor understands it before they sign.

5. Guarantor as a primary obligor (or indemnity)

Wording that makes the guarantor a “principal debtor”, or that includes an indemnity, helps the guarantee survive variations to the underlying tenancy, for example a lawful rent increase. Without this, a court may discharge the guarantor entirely if the obligation they guaranteed has materially changed since they signed. This clause is technical but it is one of the most valuable in the whole document.

6. Joint and several liability

If you want to be able to pursue the guarantor for the full amount regardless of how many tenants or guarantors there are, say so explicitly. “Jointly and severally liable” means you can recover the entire sum from any one of them, leaving them to sort out contributions between themselves. Without this wording, a guarantor may argue they are responsible only for a proportionate share.

7. Execution as a deed

A signature block clearly stating that the document is “executed as a deed”, with the guarantor’s signature, and the independent witness’s signature, full name and address. This is the clause people skip in their haste to get a tenant in, and it is the clause that most often sinks a claim.

A worked example: where a weak template costs a landlord a year’s rent

Consider a real-world style scenario. Priya lets a two-bedroom flat in Leeds at £1,200 per month on a periodic assured tenancy that started in September 2026. The tenant, Daniel, has a thin credit history, so Priya asks his father, Mark, to act as guarantor. She downloads a free template online and emails it to Mark, who signs and scans it back. There is no witness, and the document refers to guaranteeing “the obligations under the tenancy for the term”.

Eight months in, Daniel loses his job and stops paying. By the time Priya serves a Section 8 notice relying on the rent-arrears grounds (she uses the current prescribed form on GOV.UK; Ground 8 requires at least three months’ arrears at both the date of notice and the hearing), Daniel owes £4,800. Priya turns to Mark, only for Mark’s solicitor to raise two fatal objections: the document was a simple contract signed by email with no fresh consideration once the tenancy was already running, and it was not executed as a deed because there was no witness. Worse, the rent had been lawfully increased to £1,250 in month seven via a Section 13 notice, and the template contained no indemnity or principal-debtor wording, so the variation arguably discharged Mark altogether.

Had Priya used a properly drafted deed of guarantee, witnessed, executed as a deed, with a clear duration clause and indemnity wording anticipating lawful rent increases, Mark would have been squarely liable for the full £4,800 plus the increase. The difference between a strong and a weak guarantor agreement template is, quite literally, the difference between recovering a year’s rent and recovering nothing.

Comparison: simple contract vs deed of guarantee

How a guarantee interacts with rent increases

Under the Renters’ Rights Act, rent on a periodic assured tenancy can be increased only once a year, using a Section 13 notice on the current prescribed form on GOV.UK. Rent-review clauses in the tenancy agreement are banned, and if the tenant challenges the increase, the First-tier Tribunal cannot set the rent above the figure you proposed. Our guide to Section 13 rent increases explains the full mechanism.

When you do raise the rent lawfully, you naturally want the guarantor to remain liable for the new, higher figure. That is precisely why the “principal debtor” or indemnity wording in clause 5 matters so much: it stops a rent increase being treated as a “material variation” that releases the guarantor. A well-drafted deed will expressly state that the guarantor’s liability extends to any rent as increased from time to time in accordance with the law. Make sure your template anticipates lawful future increases rather than freezing the guarantee at the original rent.

Common mistakes that make a guarantee unenforceable

• No witness on the deed, or a witness who is the tenant, the landlord, or another party to the agreement.
• Signed after move-in as a simple contract, so there is no consideration and nothing to make the promise binding.
• Vague duration wording (“for the term”) on a tenancy that has no fixed term and therefore no defined term.
• No indemnity or principal-debtor wording, so a later lawful rent change releases the guarantor.
• Not giving the guarantor a copy of the tenancy agreement, so they can later argue they did not know what they were guaranteeing.
• Rushing the signing without giving the guarantor time to read and understand an open-ended commitment.

Always give the guarantor reasonable time to read the document, provide them with the tenancy agreement, and ideally recommend they take their own independent advice before signing. A guarantor who can credibly show they did not understand the commitment is a guarantor who may resist paying, and who may find a sympathetic ear in court.

Where the guarantor fits in your wider letting process

A guarantee is only ever as good as the person standing behind it, so reference the guarantor as carefully as you reference the tenant. Confirm their identity and address, and verify that their income comfortably covers the rent, a common benchmark is that a guarantor should earn enough to pay the full annual rent several times over, since they may have their own outgoings too. Our guides on tenant referencing in England and how to reference a tenant step by step set out the order of checks, and a tenant credit check on the guarantor is just as worthwhile as one on the tenant.

If you are not yet sure whether a guarantor is even needed, start with our guide on whether you need a guarantor at all, which weighs the situations that justify one. And for a ready-made, up-to-date starting point you can adapt, see our free RRA-compliant guarantor agreement template.

Frequently asked questions

Does a guarantor agreement have to be a deed?

No, a guarantee can be a simple contract, but for a tenancy you should use a deed. A deed is enforceable without consideration and gives you a twelve-year window to bring a claim instead of six. The most common reason guarantors avoid paying is that a simple contract was signed after the tenancy started, leaving no consideration. A properly executed deed removes that risk entirely.

Can a landlord still require a guarantor after the Renters’ Rights Act 2025?

Yes. The Act did not ban guarantors or cap their liability. You can still ask a tenant to provide a guarantor where the tenant’s income, credit history or referencing results justify it. What has changed is that your guarantor document must be drafted for an open-ended periodic tenancy rather than a fixed term, with a clear duration clause.

How long is a guarantor liable under a periodic tenancy?

For as long as the deed says, and because periodic tenancies have no fixed end date, that can be the whole life of the tenancy. A guarantor’s liability does not end simply because the tenant moves out owing rent; it ends when the tenancy ends or as the deed provides. Some landlords agree a capped sum or a capped period to make the commitment more palatable to the guarantor.

Who can witness a deed of guarantee?

Any independent adult who is not a party to the document. That rules out the tenant, the landlord and any other guarantor. The witness watches the guarantor sign, then signs themselves and adds their full name and address. A missing or invalid witness is one of the most frequent reasons a guarantee deed is held void.

Does a guarantor remain liable if the rent is increased?

Only if the deed is worded to cover it. A lawful Section 13 increase is a variation of the tenancy, and without “principal debtor” or indemnity wording a court may treat that variation as releasing the guarantor. A well-drafted deed expressly extends the guarantor’s liability to the rent “as increased from time to time” so the guarantee survives a lawful increase.

Can one guarantor be liable for all tenants in a house share?

Yes, if the deed says so. Joint and several liability wording lets you recover the full debt from a single guarantor, who then has to seek contributions from others. If you only want a guarantor to back one named tenant’s share, the deed must say that instead, silence on the point is a recipe for a dispute.

This article is general information for England and reflects the law as we understand it in force on 18 June 2026 under the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. It is not legal advice. A guarantee that fails on a technicality can cost you a year’s rent, so check the current position on GOV.UK and legislation.gov.uk, and have a solicitor review your template before you rely on it.

Coming soon

Tenancy Pilot is launching soon with a guided deed of guarantee generator that produces a fully executed-as-a-deed guarantor agreement tailored to your periodic tenancy, with the duration, indemnity, joint-and-several and witness clauses already drafted correctly, plus a built-in prompt to give the guarantor the tenancy agreement before signing. Be first to use it when we launch: join the waitlist.