Any tenant who wants to apply to live in any of my properties not only has to pass strict referencing and affordability criteria (and have proven sufficient surplus to pay the ridiculously expensive gas and electric bills, not to mention the eye-watering council tax), but they must also have a working, home-owning guarantor who can afford to do the same.

Of course, the problem for the guarantor is even worse. You see, not only do they have to prove they can pay their own bills, but they must also have enough excess to be able to show they could cater for the potential tenant in case of default.

Guarantor agreements, in case you’re not familiar, do not stop at death. The liability is full and never-ending once a tenant is in place.

But this talk about “hardship tests” being applied before being able to evict a tenant (one of the tests being whether the tenant would be made homeless) has made me question: how can I tool up against this? 

One of my thoughts was: should I speak to a lawyer about having a clause in the guarantor agreement that they have to guarantee alternative accommodation so the tenant can’t claim future homelessness?

I mean, it’s insane. 

I got to thinking how a corporate landlord would deal with such an eventuality. It was pointed out to me on Twitter that they already have plenty of legal people on their staff, so would be ready to weather the fall.

At that point, I thought: I should probably throw in the towel now. I really can’t afford, nor can be bothered with, legal battles about me trying to evict a tenant and being prevented from doing so. 

In case anybody has forgotten, I am a private landlord not a housing charity.