Pets or no pets?

Even if you are a pet lover, the decision to allow pets or not can be a challenging one for most landlords.  As soon as you mention renting out your property, no doubt will come all the “horror stories”.

Whilst of course having a pet can be regarded as an element of risk, generally responsible people will be responsible pet owners who treat and care for your home with genuine respect and without issue.  In fact, some of our best tenants have pets and you wouldn’t even know the pets were there!

Pets form part of people’s family and allowing tenants to have pets can provide people with a feeling of being settled providing you with long term tenancy, and for people living alone being able to have a pet provides them with companionship and again can lead to more settled tenancy.

Should permission be given for a pet, the name, age, breed and details of the pet would need to be fully disclosed to a landlord to enable them to make an informed decision, and if granted a tenant would be required to sign a “Pet Agreement” taking full responsibility for the pet including cleaning, damages and any nuisance caused to neighbours.

The decision on pets if often a very personal choice and many landlords prefer to adhere to a strict “no pet” policy, and some tenants will in fact only rent properties that have never housed pets due to allergies; so there really is a market for all choices and at the end of the day is always up to you as the owner of the property.