The first thing to understand is that if an individual is shown on a lease as the tenant then they are ultimately fully liable for the obligations contained in the lease such as the payment of rent etc. This means that they are personally liable and their personal assets are on the line if they don’t comply with the tenants obligations.
It goes without saying that there is no point in having the same individual named as tenant and also named as a guarantor as this is doubling up and doesn’t give the landlord any more security than if the individual was just named as tenant.
If the tenant is a company, then only the assets of the company are on the line if they default. Often these assets are not worth much which is why landlords often ask for the directors of the company to “go guarantor” (which means they are personally liable if things go wrong).
Sometimes another individual is prepared to guarantee the obligations of a tenant (whether a company or an individual) so in this case you could have the situation where one individual is named as the tenant, and another individual is named as guarantor.
Regards
Steve Evans