UK Landlord Forum / Life

When I sign a contract with a family, which members of the family should sign the contract

Obviously there is normally a lead tenant, perhaps the main bread winner, but in addition:

- should this person's spouse/partner also sign the contract?
- what if there are other adults living with them (for example children over 18) should they sign the contract.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of getting all adults to sign, versus getting just a lead tenant to sign.

Background: My concern is that if only one person signs and they leave, the rest of the family will remain in situ without a binding contract.  How should I guard against this?

Many thanks.

I would get the 2 parents to sign usually. However, I see nothing against getting all adults to sign. The advantage is that each signatory is jointly and severally liable for the rent. If it is a couple (co-habiting or married) then both, regardless of one being main bread winner or not - circumstances change. When you do the checks they can say what their proportion of the rent will be - it can be 0, that's OK.

Hi Martha
To answer your question there is nothing you can do about a tenant leaving and his family staying on.
If he signed on as the tenant and told you nothing about the family and then brought them into the property later not much you could do. Same with a girlfriend or boyfriend or a mate.

However unless you have agreed to a surrender of the lease the eviction process remains the same, you serve a notice against the named tenant, if they do not respond then the bailiff (after court process) will evict anyone they find at the property (the bailiff doesnt ask for names).

So although not much you can do about it the process protects you in the same way.

Having said that I am somewhat paranoid about doing things that are even slightly different to the norm and so generally try to get all adults on the tenancy agreement - but there is no basis for this other than paranoia.

Note I did think I only needed to do the Right to Rent Check on the tenant but strictly speaking if the Landlord has any cause to know any adult will be living at the property (even if they are not the tenant) then there is an obligation on the Landlord to carry out the Right to Rent Check on that person... try explaining that to an agent or a permitted occupier (non-tenant)...so might be easier to get them all to sign anyway.

The only other dis/advantage I can think of is the cost of the checks themselves...

Hippogriff and TAL, many thanks for your words of wisdom.

As a follow up to this what is the procedure if another adult moves in after the contract is active and you want to add them to the contract.

Does this require a new contract?

Is this procedure different for the initial AST period v SPT ?

Thanks

To add another tenant is quite frankly a process fraught with doubt - not because of the tenancy agreement change but all the other peripheral things to be thought about.

There are three options:
Option 1 Terminate current agreement
The Tenant and Landlord agree that tenant can surrender the current lease and commensurately enter into a new agreement.
Issues
This is a new agreement and all the same things as a new agreement need to be adhered to e.g. a new deposit needs to be taken and protected, the old deposit needs to be returned - see the problem already? You could see if your deposit agency can transfer a deposit (assuming you have not used an insured scheme) but this is not usually possible. 
Do you need a new inventory? Depends on what you agree with the new tenant [and you need to record that]
Re-serve all the same things EPC, Gas Cert, How to Rent etc etc etc etc
Make sure the Surrender has a conditions precedent related to the new agreement (or better still dont sign the Surrender until the new lease is signed).

Option 2:  Allow the existing tenants to sub-let
Issues
I have never liked the concept of one tenant letting to another as that means there is someone in my property that I do not have a contractual relationship with.  In practice the sub-tenant can be evicted at the same time the tenant but my paranoia won't let me rely on that.

Option 3:  Assign from the current tenants to the current tenant plus the newcomer
Issues
For me the best option but if you are not used to this then you will likely need a solicitor to draw up a Deed of Assignment - if the tenants are willing to cover the cost then wny not?

Options 2 and 3 are no different for SPT obviously option 1 there is no SPT

[I have assumed this was a theoretical question based on the previous question so havent laid out all the nitty gritty]

TAL, many thanks for your thorough response. It is a great help.