Today I want to talk to you about tenants with pets.
Do you?
Don’t you?
It’s one of those!
Cat, dog, rabbit, goldfish, who knows?

Let’s break it all down and let’s get rid of the scare factor.

First of all pets tend not to be allowed in rental properties and apartments because it’s against the leasehold, and obviously you have to abide by those rules because you pay your monthly management service charge to them.
So you can’t obviously approve pets.

Now if it’s a family home or if it’s a house say with a garden that is suitable, it’s something to strongly consider.
More and more tenants are wanting to settle down and make a rental property their home, they’re not looking for that high turnover, every six to eight months.

When it’s a family, then comes the pet.

What we tend to do at Inspired is deal with it case by case.

So if a tenant approaches us and they’ve got five german shepherds and they want to rent a one bedroom cluster home – I’m sorry, no go.
This property is too small for them.
The property would heavily suffer and so would you as a landlord.

If it’s a two or a three bedroom, four bedroom, five bedroom house that’s got a reasonable sized garden and it’s a family that has come forward and they’ve got one king charles spaniel that’s over one year of age, that’s fully house trained, it’s something to consider.

You have a pet clause written into the agreement that any damage caused by the pets, the tenants are responsible for, and that the property would have to be deodorised and fumigated at the end of the tenancy along with any damage caused by the pet, the tenant is responsible for.

Now deposits are capped at five weeks, okay.
Should obviously the pet cause any damage, you’re not going to be covered.
Therefore you want to start looking at insurance policies with regards to deposit replacement schemes.
There’s quite a few out there on the market so you want to have a look and find out the best one for you, but this is where you can get more cover to protect your property and your investment at the end of the tenancy so if there are any damages caused by the pets.

Like I said it does come down to yourself, but if you’re a landlord that is looking for a long-term tenant when you’ve got a family home, it’s something that I would strongly consider and you deal with it case by case.
You don’t want to necessarily have five or six pets in the property, one or two depending on the breed is something to consider.

If you would like to know more please contact me,
Danielle Withers-Brown,
Lettings director at Inspired Sales and Lettings,
Where we’re with you every step of the way on your property journey.