Tenants Breaking Up – Landlord Rights & Legal Position

Either he will move back in or she will be gone within the year (assuming there are no kids).

I have had a similar situation but tenants moved out and went different directions, glad I had a guarantor though as would not have got money without putting pressure on the dad. In your situation I would just keep taking the money until the situation arises where an alternative action is required. The fact that circumstances have changed has not caused you any issue. As you say they are both liable for rent but you should be on top of it perhaps making 1/4 visits as she might go off with a new partner and he might just stop paying rent. Not a problem for today but tomorrow will come.

This happened to me and the woman stayed and ended up claiming benefits to stay in the property as she didn't work. My "No DSS" in the advert 2 years earlier went out of the window. To be fair despite the warnings of my agent that housing benefit tenants were unreliable, the rent was alway paid on time and in full.

As a tenant I've done ' bullshit maintenance repairs' myself or paid a professional to do them - then had strips torn off me by the landlord as it's 'not up to me to make those decisions' I'm talking about blocked drains and faulty electrics. It seems to me no matter how good a thoughtful and self sufficient tenant you are landlords don't give a rats. I hope if there's ever a day roles are reversed I more than appreciate a good tenant.

Re your "Business Vs Personal matters" bullet point: this is really important. I've just had a tenant contacting me with various personal and mental health issues. I've recommended she investigates getting some help, but apart from that, I am keeping my distance (and monitoring rent).

Add this experiernce to the list !! Ive had the lot from old folk found ill in bed to the suicide of a friend.
I'm sure that Littlewoods sell ejector beds. It would seem that my tenants change partners every time the school bell rings and the button is pressed an a new partner installed.
At least your situation is reasonably straight forward.. Unlike my tenant who gave one of the properties to his ex wife (who incidentally hates him) and cleared off without telling us. I won't quite use the word compassion but general help has meant a long term tenant on DHSS and she has been as good as gold making up shortfall payments.
Oh Ive had the sob stories. One got cancer and was on a short term contract. Her kids wrecked the house whilst in hospital. This was followed up by 'fake' letters from her brother purporting to be a letting agent telling me they had pulled in environmental health because the wrecked bathroom was a health hazard. Then they pulled in environmental health. I won that case.
Welcome to the crazy world of being a landlord. One minute it seems smooth and the next minute some weird and wonderfulproblem will be foisted on you just as you have changed into your good clothes to go to an evening show.

Love the way you express yourself, keep it coming.

This is one of the many, many, MANY reasons why statutory 3 year contracts are not a good ides.
As agents we have dealt with this situation quite a lot. As you rightly say, they are jointly and severally liable for the rent until the end of the fixed term of the tenancy agreement. If the tenancy runs into a periodic, they should still both be liable. What should happen is that the person who has moved out should give notice that they are leaving at the end of the fixed term, then you should issue a new tenancy for the sole occupier if they have been paying the rent ok. It would be unusual for the person who has moved out to voluntarily keep paying rent after the fixed term, but if Eddie is happy to do that, you could let the tenancy run on into a periodic.

@Landlord
Interestingly enough I seem to have the best tenants now that I have ever had. Its gradually sinking into them that the day of the free meal ticket is vanishing. That together with the computer age really coming in means they can run but they can't hide.
Localization rules are helping together with new DHSS rules. The supply of houses is diminishing for those who dont obey basic requirements of being a tenant. My friend works in a very large agency/estate agency and gets at least 3 requests a day because they are in rent arrears and sections 21 or 8 have been issued. As the council made one simple rule. If you are evicted for rent arrears then you are deemed to have made yourself homeless then their obligation is reduced to basic emergency accommodation. Her advice? Don't think the landlord was going to fund your smoking or the x box or widescreen tv. Get the priorities right. And that is just what my tenants seem to be doing !! Whey hey !!
PS my friend actually lost her job in a letting agency a year ago due to 2 large landlords deciding to do their own management. She took a £7k pay cut. One month and one day in arrears the mortgage company stomped on her. No help from DHSS here. Yes she cut back and survived !!

AAAAAAAAHHH The landlord, you have cursed me!

I was reading your blog approximately one ago hour thinking, oh well I've not had that one happen to me.

And now I have literally just had an email, saying Mrs XXXX has separated from her husband and can she have a tenancy in her own name so she can claim.

AAAAAAAHH The Landlord - what have you done!

What would you guys do in this situation?

Simple. If they have been good tenants keep em if you can.
One port of call if she will go on benefits is local HB rates. New rules have limits on rent which mean for example (may vary) that rent cannot be more that £25 than HB.

Thanks Nige, I will be fine with the rent. They have been tenants for one month.

It seems as if it was all planned.

I think as the HB rate will cover the rent I will allow it but will keep the husbands details on file to use as a chase if there are issues.

@ Charlotte. Never trust anyone in this game.
The smiley face hides some devious reasons.
HB takes time to sort/pay so tell them until that is paid you expect rent as usual. Ask her meet you and go through the contract. There is a good chance hubby read it she didn't. And if she applies for benefits this should be asap...not tomorrow...and ask for the receipt she can request to say she has made an application.

@Charlotte,

'can she have a tenancy in her own name so she can claim.'

That doesn't sound right to me.
I have certainly had tenants in a similar position who have claimed without a new sole tenancy agreement.
Ask who at the council has advised her that and speak to them or even better, ask for the section in the council manual and do a search and read it up for yourself.

'It seems as if it was all planned.'

It does.
If she came to you tomorrow as a new prospective tenant would you take her on? I don't think I would.

When you took them on originally, did they have a guarantor or RGI?

Can she get a guarantor now?

Did you check them thoroughly?

Who is the lead tenant for the deposit?

Can she come up with a new deposit when the original is released?

'What would you guys do in this situation?'

I'd make it clear the husband is still liable for the rent, their domestic problems are their own affair.
I don't like being conned and I doubt this will end well so I'd serve a section 21 now.
I'd also offer to release them early from the agreement provided all rent is paid up until they leave.

@Nige,

'rent cannot be more that £25 than HB.'

I've never heard of that before and I know of lots of tenancies that breach that (some of mine included).

Do you have a link?

I think you are mistaken, could be wrong, please confirm.

Charlotte - our council would require a tenancy in her sole name before she can claim. If her husband is still on the tenancy, then he is liable for the rent as well and if he is working there is no valid claim for housing benefit. You are in a legal Catch 22. If you issue a new tenancy, the wife can claim benefit, but you can not get any money from the husband and if you keep the same tenancy she can't claim. It would be worth asking the husband to be the guarantor for the new tenancy. That way she could claim, but he would be liable if she defaults on the rent.
Re the deposit; he will need to sign an agreement to say he will allow the deposit to be used for her sole tenancy, unless she can find the money herself. You will need to re-serve the prescribed information and re-protect the deposit.

Landlord - I agree with Andy. Eddie may have agreed to pay the rent, but if Dorothy pisses him off he may well stop paying. I am thinking that shagging her landlord might well do the trick! My advice - hands off!!

@Helen,

What you say makes good sense.

Although there is no way I would give her a new tenancy without some very strong safeguards.

Re the deposit, that means that at some stage this dodgy tenant has the deposit in their hands.

I wouldn't trust them.

@ benji,
I only refer to our local area. Yes I have had tenants who overshoot the amount paid by LHA and HB. This is result of the so called bedroom allowance. I just phoned my friend in the agents for confirmation. It would appear that when a tenancy is granted HB/LHA require a copy of tenancy agreement before making assessment. She had a case where rent was £650 and max LHA was £595 . Tenants were not allowed to take it.The rejection was done on the basis that LHA was assessed on income /circumstances and therefore where was the extra money coming from ?. I know there are contingency funds that can be called on to avoid eviction where for example a rent increase takes the rent over the £595 + £25 . As said the localization acts are allowing different areas different rules.In our area landlords are of course bumping rents up over the LHA+£25 to stop tenants on benefits. All this said I have a tenant who gets £465 per 4 weeks on a £619.50 pcm rent and he makes it up. Whether this is contingency plan money or not is not my concern as long as I am getting my money which I am. I have a feeling that he will be pulled up by some benefits department to account for where that is coming from. Poignant as there are 1 adult+ 1 child in 3 bed house. I have a feeling the guarantor is stepping in on this case and I am on good terms with tenant but he is the type to avoid work rather than get a low paid job and get tax credits or whatever.

It has certainly tightened up the system to stop those who skip thinking they are going to get help from the councils after leaving the previous landlord with debts and unpaid matters. No longer can they just run and the landlord is left using all the tools of section 21s and 8's to gain possession of their property whilst the property remains vunerable security wise.

I don't make the rules but this current system favours ALL tenants who are decent and above board and definitely stomps on those who have no intention of doing anything but moving from one landlord to another leaving a trail of devastation.

- Don't take sides. If you say to one of them that the other is a complete b*****d, you can guarantee that two weeks later they will be back together and your comment will be shared. The one with whom you sided will declare you are the villain of the piece, and the next thing you know they will be blaming you for the split in the first place.

- Don't seek too much information. If Social Services have put her and the children in a refuge because of violence, you are better off not knowing where they are. So when he asks you if you know their whereabouts, you can honestly say 'no'.

Also if you think one of them has been cheating with someone else, you should turn a blind eye. There could be an innocent explanation - but you don't want to know. So when the other one asks you about it you can honestly say you know nothing.

- Really, really try to remain neutral. When you hear the sob story from one side, you will think it's all the other one's fault. Until you hear the sob story from the other one. We never know what goes on inside someone else's relationship.

- Always remember that you are not their Social Worker, Debt Counsellor, housing advisor, marriage guidance counsellor etc. You are just their landlord.

@Nige,
Cheers for the reply.

Maybe your area is different but this refers to the country as a whole;

http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Crisis%20Briefing%20-%20Housing%20Benefit%20cuts.pdf

According to Government figures, 48% of people on
LHA already face shortfalls between their benefit and their rent, with the average shortfall being £23/week.

I posted that link as it states the situation clearly. Since the LHA changes, the number is now closer to 2/3rds of claimants and the £100/month shortfall has increased.

This is how they are making up the shortfall;

http://www.shu.ac.uk/research/cresr/sites/shu.ac.uk/files/monitoring-impact-changes-lha-summary-early-findings.pdf

In total, 42 per cent of respondents with a shortfall said they had cut back on household essentials (such as heating and food) and 36 per cent had cut back on non-essentials. Just over a third had borrowed money from family or friends to make up the shortfall. Three out of ten claimants said they had drawn on their other benefit income (such as Income Support (IS) or Jobseeker’s
Allowance (JSA)) to make up the shortfall between their rent and the LHA that they received.

People are also allowed to claim even if they have savings of up to £6000 (or more in some circumstances).

As long as the rent is paid you are ok, when this ceases to be so, out she goes. As far as seduction goes...............old South African saying "do not shit where you eat".

Maybe in SA they eat non paying tenants. Now there's an idea !!

What kind of cuckold idiot is this, his wife sleeps with someone else and he pays 2 years rent as a settlement when there are no kids and she works?

SHE should be paying the settlement, including backpay!

@TheLandlord you need to tell us was it Ryan Air or Easyjet, I imagine the former? I banned myself from flying with them some years ago, I have never know a company who has more disdain for their customers. I remember one time they kept my lot waiting by the gate for 2 hours, finally I got a coffee and croissants at cafe kiosk right by the gate, one hat charges £6 a drink and £4.50 for a bag of crisps. I just sat back down and they called us for boarding, the delightful Nazi flight attendant then told me I could not take the purchased food or drinks on the flight. When I protested the Biatch told me that if I did not comply immediately they would not board me. So I binned the best part of £40 of food and drinks. Then on the flight they wanted to charge me £3.50 for an instant maxwell house in a pre-packed plastic cup.

That was the last straw, after years of abuse, being charged for stuff for a disabled child on top of the plethora of other over the top charges, I had enough.

I declined when a friend even offered to pay for me to have a Ryan air flight, I pointed out the that last time the airport was 70 miles from where I thought I was flying to (thus requiring a hire car), that the baggage allowance was half any other airline and they had a scam on the return journey that did not let you bring hand luggage even though it was within Ryan Air TINY Size regs, they had a grid in the airport that was smaller than the refs. Again the threat of pay up or give up or don't fly was dictated by the nastiest vermin (her previous job was in camp x-ray but she was fired for being too nice). They also had a scam where they had a 2nd member of staff who put his foot on the belt so you came up overweight. They got really pissed when I hung around and warned other passengers.

They have tried to improve their reputation but it is in the blood of the CEO and thus the organisation, he has all the discretion of Gerald Ratner. He even wanted to remove the loos to make room for more seats.

@Nige "New rules have limits on rent which mean for example (may vary) that rent cannot be more that £25 than HB" I did not hear about that, what Council do you know has that rule? It is a real "know your place" rule, thou shalt only rent a shithole. I know the max they can claim in total is limited to £500 a week and after seeing "how to get a Council House" it is hard not to agree albeit that the only people who seem to get a place are from foreign shores or here for 30 years but can't speak English so they get an interpreter too.

I disagree with that policy, a friend of mine split with his wife, ended up homeless got no support from state. He took on a 2 bed place so he could have his kids over at weekends and once in the week. The rent was £75 over the 1 bed LHA rate. He started a business from nothing and was never short or late paying the rent. Anyone can fall off the ladder, it could be YOU!

Stay away, a wide birth, things may settle down.He may return
just collect your money.
She may go after a few house inspections,so keep a low profile

good luck

@ David.
I can assure you that I have been at the bottom of the pile more than once in my life. Each time it made me determined not to be at the bottom and get off my backside and try and do something. No benefits ever given..ever.
As you say the tenant started a business from scratch. Don't anyone tell you it can't be done. At 15 my daughter was buying various sexy type toys from the £1 or 99p store and punting them out at £5 plus pp on ebay.
I have a good idea what she was turning over as mug had to get the packages to the post office and there were never less than 3 a day !!!

I agree with you Nige, but we all need a base of operations, i.e. a home and internet connection to run such a business.

I do not think it is a right of the State to dictate where someone can live, they can of course say they will only pay the rent for the appropriate number of bedrooms.

The tenant and the Landlord are the ones with the responsibilty to check affordability. I know a woman who has 3 kids, 2 of them are disabled, she works and has always paid her rent. She gets a lot of money in DLA, her child tax credits are higher because of the disabled kids. She earns around £16k before tax but gets about £32k after tax.

The DLA is provided to make the "living" with disability easier, that includes adapting a room perhaps.

There is no way she is ever going to not be able to pay the rent and it is not for a Local Council to dictate. Also what would happen if someone had already secured the tenancy, are they seriously saying that a tenant has to leave.

A landlord that lets a 4 bed house to a family needs to consider they could fall off the ladder and end up on benefits and only be entitled to rent for 3 bed because of the ages or sex of the children.

What Council was it?

@David
I won't get into the usual argument on benefits etc but as you say once they cotton on to how much they can get they have a very decent standard of living financially.
Its actually not the state who pays benefits anyway. Its from the pot of taxes we pay and therefore we all pay this by higher VAT, income tax, NI or anything else thats deducted.
Funny how the benefit payments for not working are substantially higher than the state pension. Something wrong here.

I have a tenant on basically minimum wage, 4 kids, wife not working and claims legitimately for disablement benefits.He is a great tenant. Money up front, does own repairs, borrows my driveway to fix cars etc. The net income he receives is substantially more than I get from being a landlord.But I respect his attitude. Never whinges, works awful hours and so on. After 10 years he is moving because house is not big enough to cater for disabled child.Yes he is getting help, choice of social housing to suit needs etc. I will be sad to lose him and council are supporting him. Why? Because he plays by basic rules.

Going back to rent differentials. Yes everyone can rent what they like. But the cap is on how much the public pot will pay and as I pointed out there are contingency funds. But as has been pointed out tenants can still get benefits when they have £6k in the bank and this I believe is going up. My friend got zero benefits because she owned her property and only got basic jobseekers.

If as has been also said relatives or friends are helping make up the rent then this is as it should be. I had to support my daughter through college. But if they have access to funds which are being paid regularly by a third party then this is an income and this is where the problem lies. It is classed as income and therefore benefits are adjusted accordingly.

I never question my tenants as to where the income is coming from but the authorities do. I know most are on some fiddle which I turn a blind eye to.

If we go back to the original post I had a similar situation. Married couple split and she rented one of my houses. They still saw each other daily and she had brand new furniture and bought a second car. I found the house full of fags and booze after they were going French beer runs. After 1 year of her living off benefits they reunited. So in effect for one year their lifestyle was paid by us. Something wrong here.

Genuine ones yes...not the ones who think the world owes them a living.

Nige said rent cannot be more that £25 than HB.

That sounds like a load of old bollocks.
Cut the bullshit stories.
Just answer the question-
What council was it?

Well Emmagain I don't really give a flying fig whether it is as you say a lot of old bollocks. I'm retired and like many landlords I speak to I am selling up. As I said unfortunately I will be evicting good tenants with plenty of notice and as they are finding out its almost impossible for them to find properties that they can afford any more.And yes I offer all the support I can.
My tenants have been aware for 2 years that the tenancy may end as this is my pension. They chose to stay. 3 beds that I rent for £595 will fetch the new owners £750 so tell me where the tenant will find the £155 extra a month as the max LHA rates are set per area.? And they are now liable for 15% council tax adding another £10 a month. (again not my fault)
I have just spoken to someone regarding this who rents a housing association house. Before they got their tenancy they had to jump through 101 hoops including all incomes and whether they would be able to afford the rent on benefits. Bank statements had to be produced showing personal flows of all incomes and if they couldn't afford they didn't get.. I have friends who have kept properties vacant for over 2 years and they are subject to penalty council tax rather than go through the complications of renting.
My local council scheme consisting of offering a deposit bond for disadvantaged people ( all but one of my properties are on this scheme and the property is inspected for standards by the council) is having virtually zero take up now by landlords.
If private landlords are attacked or are subjected to this constant tirade of rules and regs plus accusations I know exactly where this will lead as I see it happening now. Property is being mopped up by less than scrupulous landlords(often foreigners who hop back to their own country to avoid prosecution) who are far harder on tenants than accredited landlords.

So go attack someone else Emmagain. I offer good service to my tenants at affordable rents in inspected properties. I don't make DHSS rules. Find out which council yourself.

That was hard work Nige.

What you said was, rent cannot be more that £25 than HB.

What you meant was, that is what one of the housing associations in your local area requires.

That isn't 'DHSS' rules, it is just what some social landlord has decided as the criteria for letting out their properties.

It is a very different thing.

You wait until you travel on the budget budget airlines. Flew on one and hand luggage had to be placed in front of you between the knees. It was E10 to put in overhead locker. Or the Bulgarian inflight meal that was a chunk of cheese and slices of cucumber. When another passenger said they had ordered vegetarian the cheese was removed and replaced with more cucumber. However in the latest economy cuts and get as many in as you can they are currently experimenting with standing seats. Yep 23 inch legroom and you semi stand like those sloping bus stop seats.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/09/13/new-airplane-seats-give-only-23-inches-of-leg-room/.
Yep mysteriously Ryanair never had milk of sugar for the coffee on one flight !!!
Nothing beats a 12 hour stop on Dehli tarmac with external aircon unable to keep inside cool. Then sitting on takeoff with aircraft on full throttle to 'test' engines again and them failing. No food available because they could not locate a safe source. We got to Dubai before engines failed again. 48 hours stuck on a plane.

Think you can travel cheaper in Europe but it involves hanging onto a lorry axle at Calais !!

To be honest we do get some flights cheap when you consider the tax on departures.
http://www.afairtaxonflying.org/

I looked up rail travel within uk and choked at some of the prices. Even a 1 mile trip to the shops on a bus here is £2. (unless you have a bus pass like me !!)

More worrying is the latest report on servicing of aircraft. It is/was done in house and the changes mean that it can be farmed out anywhere. (looking forward to seeing 747s parked outside Joe's MOT station)

@Emmagain be nice we can all have different opinions but no need for that.

@Landlord That reminds me I was messing around with Google translate and found this symbol (كسها)which I reserve for the chief exec of Ryanair. If he dies before me I will visit his grave, plant weeds and piss on it.

I heard that the aftertaste is because they use the "not drink water" (supposed to be for cleaning chemical toilet) to make the coffee.

Once I flew with them and they wanted to charge me for checking my bag which had a 10kg limit (24kg to 32kg elsewhere), so I decided to keep it under 5kg and have hand luggage only.

Of course I did not know that the security means you can carry on a 200ml aftershave (£48) in fact all my ash things got nabbed and binned.

If RyanAir went bust I would open that spare bottle of bubbly that I have been saving for a good occasion.

Sadly other airlines are copying them in this insane charge for every line item nonsense.

Most companies spend years building up their brand and reputation, this one seems determined to have the worst in the industry.

I have been on some cheap flights to Latin America, one where the only food or drink for 11 hours was a 30g packet of peanuts and a Rum with coke. On the internal flight I am not saying the plane was an old crate but they started the plane with the propeller and there was a puncture repair on the tyre! I do not mind cheap cheap but I hate the way RyanAir revel in ripping you off.

@nige, it really makes me sad to see you selling up with the impact on those families, it is understandable and what you highlight is the problem a lot of people face, a 25% hike in rents.

That is why they have no choice but to ask for social housing and why they get angry when they see "how to get a Council house" where most of the people getting them are fake assylum seekers or "our family argues a lot so give a home". The best quote was from the woman told she could not afford her rent and she said she would cancel Sky.

I do not have Sky because I can't afford it, I do not even have a TV License because I realised that my analog TV can't receive any channels so no live TV and by buying a NowTV box with no subscriptions (£10) I can watch catchup TV.

I have paid a fortune in tax in my lifetime and I was told "we do not have an obligation to you" when presenting homeless. I was told to go the the charity that meet twice a week in the Church. Not even a leaflet. No special treatment, no translaters laid on by the Council, sweet FA.

Actually I could claim disability but I will not and by the time I have to I will be ready to die.

Those wonderful Con-servatives have way more cuts planned, the FT said that based on reports from the office of budget responsibity "the numbers do not add up" and the cuts will need to be much deeper to achive what they say.

blogs.ft.com/off-message/2014/12/03/the-cuts-to-come/

Then we get the energy companies go get a 30% cut in energy costs (with more to come after oil price down) and just one gives us a paltry 3%. When these Bar Stewards put the prices up they blamed the oil price and we had to pay more immediately. Now they say it is because they buy futures, yet we all know they buy from their own companies to hide their obscene profits.

Now that is a rant!

@David,
Yep but as my x grabbed everything she could except one small pension I don't really have an option.The 'married' deal was that I had property as pension and she had her business and the 25+years on 4 pension schemes. And then 2007 hit.

Just out of interest everyone blames one party or another. The current round of benefit cuts were actually published by labour prior to conservatives winning. And if you check political history you will find that measures implimented by one party are very rarely reversed by the incoming one.

Yes I will be kind of sad to have to 'evict' my tenants but in straight economic terms together with commercial valuations the properties will need updating or at least refreshing. I have noticed a trend here lately though. Houses are being sold at market value with tenants sitting. Something that has been rarely seen around here. Its all based on returns per capital input so houses are actually achieving higher than I would have expected than in the past.

Unbeknown to me, my married tenants have split up at some point and she has just remarried someone else and they are both now living in my property.

I have a joint tenancy in the names of Mr and Mrs Priddey and have done for 3 years. It has been renewed every 12 months and supposedly Mr and Mr Priddey have been signing it. It was only renewed in April 2015 and I made a point of asking her if there were any changes, I was made aware via facebook and the council phoning me to ask who was living in my property as Housing Benefit was being paid, that she was not living with her husband, but a new partner

I have just found out via Facebook that she has married her partner and that Mr and Mrs Sutton are now living in my property and not Mr and Mrs Priddey. She hasn't told me of any changes in occupiers, is my tenancy agreement invalid and how do I go about changing it? .... Would I want to? as a letting agent vetted Mr and Mrs Priddey and there are guarantor in place .... I don't want to add Mr Sutton to the tenancy without credit checks etc... Did the tenancy end when Mr Priddey moved out?

If there is a guarantor there are 3 parties to the agreement. Guarantor and Mrs A and Mr A. I would imagine that the tenancy is also written as ''jointly and severally liable''

Now that Mrs A married Mr B this does not change the terms of the original agreement. It may however, as you state lead to Mr B technically being a sub letting tenant.

My first reaction would be to consider if you want to keep Mrs A as a tenant. If you do write to Mr A and the guarantor and work towards an agreement to renew the tenacy in different names. (See my earlier post where tenant gave his ex wife my house !!)

You must also get a release of deposits from the deposit scheme and transfer to the new tenancy.

The housing benefit claim is not so much a problem if you are getting the rent. If there is a guarantor then they are still liable until released. (or until tenancy is ended and a new one started.

From a logistical point of view it might be worth issueing a section 21 notice to end the original tenancy and then start a new tenancy in the name of Mrs B and Mr B subject to credit checks and expenses incurred.

Go visit and see if you can agree a solution.Write to guarantor so they are aware. If not its replace the tenants with new ones. If your area is like ours then tenants will be very aware how difficult it would be to get help and should cooperate.

This has just happened to me (I know this post is years and years old)

The tenant has asked to stay in the property and pat the rent but wants the tenancy in her own name. Can I do that? Are there protocols to follow? Any advice is appreciated!