Does the Act require a separate witnessed deed of guarantee?

Updated September 2026 · Based on official gov.uk guidance and the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 · General information, not legal advice

There is a claim doing the rounds in landlord forums and in a certain amount of confidently-written online content: that the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 now requires a guarantee to be executed as a separate deed, signed in the presence of a witness, and that a guarantor clause inside the tenancy agreement is no longer good enough.

When landlords have asked for the section number, none has been produced. When nobody can point to a section number, the claim is usually wrong. It is wrong here.

What the Act actually says about guarantors

The Act does contain a guarantor provision, and it is worth knowing about — but it is not a formalities requirement. Section 19 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 inserts new sections 16N and 16P into the Housing Act 1988, and its effect is that a guarantor is not liable for rent falling due after the tenant’s death. Where that applies, the guarantee has no effect to that extent. It covers the variations you would expect: a sole tenant who dies, a guarantor connected to one of several joint tenants, a guarantor standing behind more than one of them.

Now the detail that settles the deed question. That provision is expressed to apply to a guarantee whether or not it is in writing, and whether or not it sits within the lease itself.

That is not the language of a statute mandating a witnessed deed. Parliament does not legislate for the treatment of unwritten guarantees in the same Act in which it supposedly requires every guarantee to be a formally executed document. The Act contemplates guarantees that are oral, and guarantees that live as a clause inside the tenancy agreement, and applies its rule to all of them.

What this means in practice

Do not pay to have every guarantee redrafted because of something you read in a forum. Do check two things instead.

Check what your guarantee says about the period after a tenant’s death. For guarantees entered into on or after 1 May 2026, wording that purports to keep the guarantor on the hook for rent accruing after the tenant dies does not do what it says. Take that wording out. Leaving it in means you are relying on a term the law has cancelled, and it casts doubt on the rest of the document.

Check when the guarantee was entered into. The provision bites on guarantees entered into on or after the commencement date. Older guarantees sit in a different position, which is worth taking advice on if there is real money involved.

What actually makes a guarantee a deed, if you want one

None of the above means a deed is a bad idea — it just means the Act does not force your hand. If you want the extra protection a deed gives, it has to be executed correctly or it is worth nothing extra at all. Section 1 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 sets the formalities: the document must make clear on its face that it is intended to be a deed, and the guarantor must sign it either in the presence of one witness who also signs to attest it, or at the guarantor’s direction and in the presence of two attesting witnesses — and the document must then be delivered as a deed (handed over, or otherwise treated as binding). A signature with no witness is not a deed, whatever the document calls itself.

Here is the commercial reason a deed can be worth the extra paperwork, and it has nothing to do with the Renters’ Rights Act: a deed and a simple signed guarantee run on different limitation clocks. Under the Limitation Act 1980, a claim on an ordinary signed contract must be brought within six years (section 5), while a claim on a deed — a “specialty” in the Act’s own language — has twelve years (section 8). For a guarantee you might need to rely on years into a tenancy, that doubled window is the actual argument for a deed — not anything the RRA requires.

The wider point

This one is worth flagging beyond guarantors. A very large amount of confidently-worded material about the Renters’ Rights Act has appeared since it passed, some of it generated rather than researched. The tell is always the same: a firm assertion about what the Act requires, with no section number attached. Ask for the section. If it exists you can read it in ninety seconds on legislation.gov.uk and decide for yourself. If it does not exist, you have saved yourself a solicitor’s fee.

Every finding in our compliance check links to the specific section it relies on, for exactly this reason.

More guides

Written statement of terms · Missed the 31 May deadline? · How to increase rent (Form 4A) · Does every tenant need their own copy? · Proving you served it · Why Form 4A notices get rejected · Do you need a deed of guarantee? · Pet rent and pet insurance · The 28-day pet rule