UK Landlord Forum / Life

Hi, our tenants have got married and hence the woman changed her name upon marriage and she wants the tenancy agreement in her married name.    Do we need to get her to sign an additional tenancy agreement in her new name or can we just produce an appendix page explaining change of name referring to the original agreement?    Thanks in advance

Reminds me of Big - "She spent the last three months writing down her married name. "Mrs. Judy Hicks", "Mrs. Donald Hicks"; "Mrs. Judy Mitchellson Hicks", sometimes with a hyphen, sometimes without a hyphen. Sometimes, she spells the hyphen." - she must be so proud.

I'd ask her why it matters? It doesn't invalidate the AST. People get married, people change names... you can't predict it and plan for it, you just put the name down that someone has at the time. Is she going to get out the AST front page and look at it time and again? No (I hope not). It still binds her to all her obligations as a Tenant today just as it did yesterday.

That said, obviously change the name if the AST comes up for renewal for a new fixed term.

And all that said... take the two copies (your copy and the Tenant's copy) find where her old last name is... cross it out, write in her new last name at the side on both copies. If you want to, you can both initial or sign the page. Job done.

Thanks for your reply, the tenant wants the name changed in case she needs to get housing benefit.  Apparently it's a problem if the tenancy agreement doesn't have your current name on.  Regards, sparklystar33

Not really quite accurate as all she needs to supply with her contract if she's applying for HB is a copy of her marriage certificate.

I'd politely ask the Tenant to stop wasting your time.

Give her the problem back.

"You amend your contract, sign it again, attach your marriage cert, and if you post it to me with a self addressed envelope, I'll sign the amendments, and ad an errata at the end detailing the change, and post it back to you."