College kid, renting a room, another city, problems/question.

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s my first rodeo with this, so I appreciate your advice.

My college kid is starting her 3rd year at a college several hours away from our home.

The first year, she stayed in the dorm.

The second year, she got a ‘student apartment’. Here, each kid in the apartment has their own lease. If any kid moves or doesn’t pay or whatever, none of the other kids are affected.

Now, entering her third year, she wants to move into a house.

The rents in the houses run about half the cost of the dorms and the apartments. She’s taking steps to be more independent and, of course, wants to have cheaper rent for the day that she is responsible for all the bills (plus, she’s pretty frugal anyway).

Recently, she began to look around and answered an ad for a room for rent.

The guy, Mark, at the house said he has rented the house for two years. He graduated from the school my kid is now attending and works in the town. He has two dogs and a lot of stuff at this house- car, motorcycle, bicycle, kayak, canoe. He talked about how he was the primary caretaker of the yard and usually is the only one to cut the grass (because he owns the dogs). He joked with her about how he wouldn’t mind if she ever cut the grass, but he realized it was primarily his responsibility. He seemed like a real nice guy. I met him only in passing, and we didn’t talk.

It’s a three bedroom house and one of the roommates had already left. My daughter viewed this empty room and like it well enough. The location is very good.

Mark said the third room would be available soon (too) as that person was moving out as well. Mark said he was looking for two new roommates and that the rent would be $350 plus utilities.

My kid liked him and the place so filled out an application.

I got an email from the property management company asking me to be a guarantor. My kid doesn’t work right now, so that makes sense. I was the guarantor for the apartment. That’s reasonable.

The property management company emailed me the ‘good news’. My kid has been approved to be added to the lease, along with another person who has agreed to take the third bedroom.

But, somehow the property management company has identifed me as the guarantor.

I asked if they meant I was the guarantor for just my kid or the whole thing.
The property manager said I would be the guarantor for the lease and not just my kid. The manager said all three people would be listed on the lease and I would be the guarantor. The total rent is $1350.

I’m balking at that.

I questioned the property management company as to how and why I was elevated to to the position of guarantor for everyone.

I pointed out that Mark has been their tenant for two years (they confirmed this), they have a relationship already, so why isn’t Mark the guarantor? I asked if the new, third person was asked to or required to provide a guarantor.

The property manager said that all three people would be listed on the lease, that the lease only needs one guarantor, and since I had filled out the paperwork… yay, I win… I guess?

She said that when the previous three people signed the lease, they “qualified” by having income >3x the rent. But now with 2 new people, they don’t qualify so need a guarantor.

I asked if this was the way things were usually done, if this was the normal process. I asked that if I decided to not take the spot, would the management company keep their original 2 year tenant?

(Would my not signing cause Mark to have to move? This bothers me, but it’s not my responsibility. I’m just curious about what they say about this.))

I have not heard back about that yet.

So what am I missing here? Is this the normal process? Is it true only one guarantor is needed for a lease when none the three people on lease “income qualify”? Wouldn’t the management company want a guarantor for each person if each person is a lease holder and also doesn’t qualify?

I don’t know Mark or the new person. Why would I agree to be responsible for them?

It looks like my daughter will wait another year before moving into a house. I just can’t see acting as a guarantor for people I don’t know.

Is this normal?

2

Why does Mark need one lease for all three people? What if one of the others decides to move out? I would have thought that three separate leases would be normal. But, what do I know?

3

In all kindness, you would have to be an idiot to sign on as the guarantor.

It is not normal, and it’s likely you will get seriously burned.

4

My thoughts exactly. It’s not as though any of the three people involved have a relationship to each other. They are three strangers. For all we know, Mark could be renting the rooms at different prices. Sounds strange to have 3 complete strangers on the same lease.

5

So it sounds like the lease isn’t identifying 3 individuals, each responsible for a portion of the rent (and no more than that). It’s identifying a group of 3 persons, who are jointly responsible for the entire rent. Since those 3 people don’t have an income large enough to cover the entire rent, they want a guarantor. They only need one, since you indeed would be guaranteeing the entire rent, not just your daughter’s portion. This is pretty normal, since they’re renting the entire house out, not individual rooms in the house. And yes, you could be completely screwed if Mark and person 3 flake out on the rent.
On the other side, I don’t think you’d be screwing over Mark - he’d just have to find other roommates who do have an income large enough that the management company won’t require a guarantor.

6

Having gone through much the same song and dance with one of my kids, I’d say it’s not uncommon, particularly in towns where students make up a large part of the rental population.

In any kind of group rental, the landlord is going to make sure the rent gets paid, even if someone walks away from the lease. When my son rented a room in a house, all the renters were jointly liable for the rent. When one of them walked out, the landlord told them if they couldn’t get the ex-roommate to pay his share, the rest of them would have to make it up.

And in the case where the renters are poor students, I can see the landlord insisting that they have a sponsor/cosigner/guarantor. They don’t care if it’s only one guarantor, as long as that person can pay the $1,350. As a matter of fact, the landlord would rather only have to go after one guarantor.

So, from the property manager’s point of view, everything makes sense. Of course, from you and your daughter’s point of view, there’s a huge potential you’ll be the ones getting screwed.

This is a long way of telling you my advice is:

a) Don’t you or your daughter sign anything with other people, if you aren’t 100% sure they’ll pay, because ultimately you can be responsible for the whole thing.

b) If you can’t do a) then have your daughter go back to student housing, where she’s responsible for herself and no one else.

7

Speaking as a landlord, I would want a single guarantor for the lease. Actually, I’m not sure I’d be entirely comfortable even in the case where the combined salary was sufficient to not have one, given the higher risk of one or two people flaking out if they are all strangers. I would prefer one point of contact that had enough resources to cover the entire rent.

That being said, it’s entirely reasonable to run fleeing from a request to be the guarantor of a bunch of strangers!

This sounds like a case where the landlord’s position is reasonable, your position is reasonable, but there simply doesn’t exist an arrangement that meets everyone’s criteria. Time to move on.

8

“So what am I missing here? Is this the normal process? Is it true only one guarantor is needed for a lease when none the three people on lease “income qualify”? Wouldn’t the management company want a guarantor for each person if each person is a lease holder and also doesn’t qualify?”

No, this way the landlord only has to sue one person for payment if two or more don’t pay.

My son started renting his second year in school (in Chicago). I told him from the start, “I’ll pay for your housing by giving you $XXX for rent every month, but I am not signing on as a guarantor. You are on your own.” (…metaphorically speaking, since I was paying the rent!)

This has the added advantange of me not having to worry about his lease. He can ask me questions if he wants, but he was 19 at that point and wanted independence, and I wanted him to learn to handle these things himself. (Not meant as a criticism, because different kids are ready for “hands off” at different ages. I have a 27 y.o and a 22 y.o who will be living at home for the foreseeable future.)

He ended up subletting from some other students in a two-flat (the owner lives in the other flat).

Maybe the fact that it was a live-in individual owner and not a management company that made it possible, so if that is a possibility in your area, she might look into a situation like that.

But you would have to be nuts guaranteeing everyone.

9

I shared a house in college.

One person had rented the house. He advertised for roommates on the bulletin board in the Student Union.

There were 4 sharing the house. We paid our share of the rent and utilities to the guy renting the house. We never dealt with the landlord or utility companies.

In fact, I was replacing a roommate that had just left. The utilities were already on. I just moved in and handed over some cash towards the rent.

It did cause minor trouble later. I wasn’t building a credit history. Nothing was in my name.

10

Thanks everyone!

I understand why the management company only desires/requires one guarantor. It’s certainly in their best interest.

I suppose the ‘sharing a house’ deal would be more palatable if the sharing were done with kids and parents I knew.

As things stand now, I can’t act as a guarantor for this lease. It’s too risky and not in my best interest- especially since I live several hours away and can’t ‘manage’ this deal while also being responsible for it.

I appreciate your thoughts and helping me think this through.

11

Your decision sounds sensible.

One extra thing you could do is to contact Mark and suggest that he find a guarantor, as the longest-running tenant. It sounds like only one person needs to find a stably-employed relative to serve in that position, so why shouldn’t it be him?