If a kid is putting parent’s name as a guarantor and getting a roommate to share rent, would that make you a guarantor for the roommate as well?
In most cases yes.
I would appreciate any advice or tips from experienced parents. What are your recommendations? What did you do for your kids?
If the lease only has your son’s name on it, then he (and you) are the ones legally responsible for the apartment. If the roommate is on the lease for his share of things (joint-and-… several? I think it’s called) then you are only responsible for your son’s share.
I would not allow someone to live there without being on the lease – the potential for trouble is pretty significant, and it’s pretty common for roommate trouble to happen. Most college rentals will not allow tenants unless they are on the lease; if your son gets a roommate who isn’t, it could get them tossed out. So check on that.
Assume you will not get any security deposit back. It’s just simpler to not expect it, certainly not all of it. Choose roommates carefully. And remind any legal adults that furnishing to minors is, in many states, a crime that is enforced.
@riversider I have been a property manager and have rented to young adults without previous rental history many times. Having a guarantor is just the most common option and yes, you’d be responsible for the entire rent if the young adults living there didn’t pay it.
There are many parents that do not feel comfortable being a guarantor. You need to decide if you personally are comfortable with it.
If you decide that you would rather not do that then have your kid ask if they can prepay the rent.
The complex I worked out required 1 year of prior rental history. If the applicant did not have that and did not have a guarantor, then we allowed a prepayment of 6 months rent, then another preypayment of 6 months rent, then they could be normal renter. You can decide if you want to gift your kid any or all of that money.
We had one group of 3 young men who each could come up with 2 months rent, so they prepaid the first 6 months. Then during that first 6 months they paid the monthly rent as if it was owed. At the end of the first 6 months they then had the 2nd 6 months paid, they had their year of rental history and were good to go.
So, ask the land lord if there are other options.
The apartment our younger one is renting with a roommate has only her name on the lease; the roommate’s lease is considered separate and handled by the complex. While they share a space, they do not share legal obligations. We are guarantors on the lease. Older D does not have a roommate in her apartment, but the leasing scenario is the same. For both kids we went with an all-inclusive pre-furnished type complex.
We’re currently dealing with the hassle of older D having shared a house this past year with three roommates and having to make sure all the water, power, cable, etc is taken care of by the end of this month. Add to that the house is not in great shape after this year of the roomies having a cat, and who’s going to take the hit for that. Ugh. Not doing that again.
I too had the same concerns and situation when my son graduated and was going to move to NYC. Each parent would have to be the guarantor for their own kid. However, the 3 roommates were able to show letters of employment and they qualified on their own. Definitely look into that possibility. We did find a company in New York that actually takes on the role of guarantor after they do their due diligence for about the cost of one months rent but luckily our help was not needed. That option takes you out of the loop.
Crazy, my son is now finishing his third year and third apartment. lol
good luck
No, ‘joint and several’ means everyone is liable for ALL of the lease and the landlord can sue one person or all the people, but can sue just one and that person is responsible for the entire judgment.
There are now a lot of rental companies building near colleges and working with the schools. They will rent one room in the apartment to just one person and that person is only responsible for 1/4 of the rent on a 4 room unit. I think they might include utilities too. Sometimes this rent is even paid through the university, but not always. Danger is the company can put an unknown person into your unit. This happened to a friend of my daughter’s, and the new person wasn’t even a student. However, she did have a 4 person apartment to herself for 1/2 a year and only had to pay her rent.
My sister and all the other parents had to sign the rental agreement on a 5 bedroom house for her son. The entire amount due was $50k!!! The landlord kindly let them pay it in 12 monthly installments - for a fee. Security deposit was $7k and there was no way they were getting more than half of that back (carpet cleaning, re-keying, cleaning, more cleaning, fee for snow shoveling even if it didn’t snow, etc.).
Sigh. Sometimes you take a chance. Yes, I’ve signed for Kid and roommate. And they made roommate’s parent sign for for both too as well as both students signing. They get you six ways to Sunday on some of those leases. If that’s the way it’s done, and it’s the best way to go, you do it. Also had to take insurance out on a house that a bunch of them were renting. One of the kids was a “celebrity” kid and his parents had to do just as we all did if wanted in on the deal. Otherwise, find something else.
My one kid living in NYC, needed 3 months rent to move into an apartment. Roommate didn’t have the money though making s very good salary and the family was broke, single mother with a dad out of the picture with s new family. They had the credit score, job and income but not enough cash in hand, so we lent it to them. They just paid it back after a year. But it was taking a chance, and I don’t have high hopes they’ll get that security deposit back. This is not a bstudent dive but a nice apartment.
I think maybe other more palatable situations could have been found, but there was a time crunch and we needed to move along so we took the risk. Not saying I liked it.
One of my sons lived in multiple houses where they rented by the room, and all was fine. He lived in 2 places with same management and at the end they only charged us $75, because he left the bathroom a real mess and failed to take out a bunch of trash.
Younger son had 2 different apartments, and they both required a parent to be on the lease. I refused to be the only parent on the lease, but I was fine as long as a parent of each student was on the lease. They all shared everything, including the amount for repairs or whatever when they left. The managers were pretty reasonable in both cases. I think only one charged anything when they left.
I suggest you document how things will work before signing anything. We had one kid try to renegotiate rent once they were all signed. I was not happy about that, but I think we did change it just a little to keep peace.
I’ve heard some bad stories, but so far my experiences have been fine.
DH and I took the risk for both sons when they first moved in with their SOs. There was also a stretch of time when one of our sons and SO were looking for a place they could share with a friend (they ended up not doing that), and we assumed we’d be liable for failure of any / all of them to pay. This was in a very expensive and high-pressure housing market, so we actually typed up a sheet of info (SSNs, employer and pay, that sort of thing) and gave them multiple signed copies of that to submit should they want to do so on the spot.
When my D rented an apartment with two roommates all three sets of parents signed as guarantors.
^^same
Thank you. I had a chat with parents of both of his soon to be roommates and it helped. They’ve done it before.
My son lived in a place with this sort of lease during his last two years of college (except that it was a four-person apartment). It sounds good, but
(a) if someone left, the landlord had the right to put someone new in the available room if the current occupants didn’t provide a new roommate within a few weeks
(b) because of (a) and a realistic understanding that young women don’t like being forced to live with male strangers, all roommates had to be of the same gender.
You can have the other roommate sign a roommate agreement (you can search online and find one). This doesn’t protect you from the landlord coming after you for all of the rent (in order to have that, the lease has to be written that way), but, if that were to happen, it is something you can use, legally, to go after the roommate for his unpaid rent. They also cover things like damages, utilities, other roommate type issues.