Landlords are increasingly asking tenants earning even as much as £100,000 a year if their parents can guarantee the rent.
Requests for guarantors among high-earning tenants have surged since the pandemic because of tougher competition for properties and financial pressures on landlords, data shows.
Typically guarantors are required for tenants with no income, including students, but they are becoming more common among other groups – even among top earners.
Renters earning £75,000 to £99,999 are nearly three times as likely to be asked for a guarantor than in 2020, according to analysis of some 780,000 tenancy agreements from referencing company Goodlord.
Some 1.72pc of tenants in this income group provided guarantors this year, despite their high earnings. This was up from 0.6pc in 2020 – a total of 289 between 2020 and 2023.
Among tenants earning £50,000 to £74,999 guarantor requests have almost doubled from 1.47pc to 2.68pc.
Some 1,297 renters in this income bracket, and 12,966 people earning £25,000 to £49,999, were asked to provide guarantors from 2020 to 2023.
