FOR TENANTS

It's a legal arrangement where you - a prospective tenant, or perhaps a parent of a prospective tenant - appoint our company as professional trustee. Our company will hold any money you transfer to us for your benefit. This means that it is still "your money", but for as long as the trust is in place we are holding it for you. As trustee we are obliged to act according to the trust terms, which means that you can demand the money back * and close the trust. But you might want us to help support your application to rent an apartment or house for you to live in. We can do this by providing a "rent guarantee".

* If a guarantee is in place, sufficient money must remain in the trust for the trustee to be able to cover the guarantee if it is called in.

This is where somebody agrees to cover rent arrears under a tenancy agreement. So if you don't pay your rent, even after the landlord has given you a formal demand for arrears, then the landlord can instead demand that the guarantor pay those arrears.

All landlords want to ensure that they'll receive rents due to them so that they're not out of pocket. Landlords and letting agents carry out credit and other checks on prospective tenants, seek references and verify that tenants are in steady employment.

Some tenants are considered "higher risk", maybe because of a bad credit history, or because a tenant has recently come from overseas and hasn't built a UK credit history.

In the past "higher risk" tenants often gave comfort to landlords by paying a substantial amount of rent in advance, maybe covering a full year. Today, many landlords prefer to rely on a suitable guarantor arrangement instead of large upfront payments.

The alternative is for someone else to give a rent guarantee. But landlords and letting agents need to be happy that they'll recover any arrears from guarantors. They will always want to know that a guarantor has enough resources to support the guarantee. And most landlords and agents won't be happy if a guarantor lives overseas. So even if a tenant coming to live in the UK has a parent or other family member or friend willing to act as guarantor, that probably won't be acceptable unless the guarantor is based in the UK

Our trustee is a company in the UK. This is much more acceptable to a landlord or letting agent than an overseas guarantor. The trustee can provide guarantees up to a value determined by the guarantee. For example, the guaranteed amount can be aligned with the level of rent and the funds held in the trust.

It's a UK trustee company- The Trust Shop Limited. It's run by a board of directors who collectively have many years' experience in financial services and the establishment and running of trusts.

The money is placed on deposit with UK banks. It will be released to be paid back to you when you close the trust, unless the guarantee is called in. Your money isn't lent out or speculated with, and you can obtain a statement of the funds in your trust at any time.

No, GUARANTOR TRUST isn't an insurance policy. It's an alternative to rent guarantor insurance. It won't fit every situation, just like an insurance-based guarantor doesn't fit every situation.

Insurers will charge a premium for rent guarantor insurance. How much that is will depend on your circumstances, including the level of rent. The fees for GUARANTOR TRUST are fixed, and transparent. In many cases GUARANTOR TRUST will be much less expensive than insurance. In some cases GUARANTOR TRUST can help tenants who can't obtain insurance. But to be able to use GUARANTOR TRUST the tenant or member of the tenant's family will need to be able to deposit a fairly substantial sum- usually a bit more than a year's rent- to set up the trust. You'll get most of that money back after any fees have been settled and provided the guarantee isn't called in.

GUARANTOR TRUST is portable and can be used for successive tenancies. When you complete a tenancy with no money outstanding to the landlord, they should "release" your guarantee. This will leave your trustee free to provide a fresh guarantee to your new landlord. Of course if the rent is higher for your new tenancy you might need to add money to your trust. On the other hand if you move to a less costly rented home you could withdraw some money out of the trust.

Please use the contact form on this website or email us giving us your name, email address and a contact phone number. One of our team will then contact you and provide an application form for you to complete and sign. As part of this process we will need to verify the identity of the tenant, and if somebody else is providing the money to fund the trust we'll need to verify that person's identity too. We'll also need to verify the source of the money that will be used to fund your trust. Once those checks are complete we can proceed with setting up the trust. When you have found a home to rent you'll need to ask us to contact the landlord or letting agent (or ask them to contact us) and we can then put the guarantee in place.