Landlords encouraged to accept pets as they cause less damage

all landlords will still be able to refuse after RRB because by default the animal is not owned by the LL.

A LL cannot take a policy out directly with an insurance company on something they don't own ie a dog.

If a tenant takes out pet cover then a LL has no way of claiming against it directly so how will that work.

Who assesses that the tenant can afford the cost of the cover anyway? And if the tenant cancels the cover?

Too many unanswered questions .

They should have sent their researcher to the place I just refurbished. Cat excrement everywhere and cat urine soaked floor boards that smelt horrible. Each room was destroyed by both tenant and pet and the cost wasn’t £300, it was £30,000.

Reply to the comment left by Geoff1975 at 05/12/2024 - 16:59
Geoff,

I always state no pets but
However due to circumstances,I've had and still have some tenants who end up with dogs, cats, guinea pigs and even a snake! Some are no problem at all and never noticed any problems, I've had a dog that has trashed doors by scratching at them to get in a closed door in a couple of months during Covid. (Owner was a Police officers partners dog, who both moved in during Covid).

One Tenant moved out of another house and he had carpets professionally cleaned without me asking and I've never had any complaints about smell from next tenant.

I've bought houses where there has been a dog and the house stunk and had dog hair everywhere.

A lot of the time It's the owners fault for not looking after the animal and not the Dog at fault.

I have a cat myself and it always uses a litter tray which is cleaned regularly and has never crapped or peed on the floor. OK, there may be some buried treasures in the garden waiting to be discovered. Free fertilizer.

If a cat is peeing and crapping on the floor, it's definitely down to the tenant (or a seriously ill cat), Cats are in general clean animals and bury their crap.
It must not have had a litter tray.
Did you see one on your inspections?

For it to cause £30k worth of damage in a few months, did you not do regular inspections? If not that must have been a very big house?

Guess I've been lucky, the worst I've had was a house that seemed to be looked after well on visits and so did his previous house that I visited.

Then they suddenly left and decided to leave a skip load of stuff behind and as a leaving present, punch holes in the doors or rip them off their hinges for no apparent reason. I found out later that he did the same thing to his next landlord. Still way less than £30k of damage.

In general, I've had children and tenants cause more damage than pets, but I rent out 2 or 3 bedroom family homes with gardens, so a bit difficult to say no kids.

I'd still prefer to not let to tenants that want pets due to the additional damage and the government banning tenant fees to cover the cleaning and repair.

Guess I've been mostly luck with pet problems up to now.

I still think that the government are partially responsible to blame for landlords not wanting anything to do with pets.

My sister put her first [and only] BTL in the capable hands of the council for 3 years. She had spent a fortune refurbishing it to a high standard, and against my advice, went with the council because she and her husband had no time to manage it.

When she asked about inspections, she was told they hadn't done one for 6 months, and told her she was not permitted to inspect her own property. She went with a clipboard and knocked on the door. She was appalled at what she found.

Her new carpets had been ripped up and the floors were covered in newspaper soaked with urine and dog faeces. Drug paraphernalia everywhere. Her new kitchen doors were hanging off, as was the oven door. Apparently, druggies hide their gear in the cupboards above the oven and stand on the open door to reach it. The best was in the sitting room, where she found the tenant was breeding pit-bulls.

When she told the council, she was admonished for inspecting.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 06/12/2024 - 10:06
". . . admonished for inspecting"
Quite right too, how dare she inspect her own property to make sure it had not been damaged.
I trust that the council put the property back into original condition?

Reply to the comment left by Reluctant Landlord at 05/12/2024 - 15:42Even if a tenant took out a “pet cover”, and was by some miracle inclined to hand over any compensation to a landlord, there is a different issue here. Pet insurances for homes only cover accidental damage - ie a dog wagging a tail and breaking a lamp. The insurance doesn’t cover urine damaged carpets, scratched floors or anything chewed up. So the damages most relevant to landlords will not be covered unless the insurance industry comes up with new products.
But the government is clearly not concerned about pesky details like that.

The Govt in its wisdom (?) removed pet deposits under the Tenant Fees Act. This enabled LLs to recover at least some of the additional costs associated with pet damage (or lack of pet care) upon a tenant's departure of the property, although even that deposit was often inadequate.

Now, the Govt plus Uncle Tom Cobbley and all expect LLs to accept pets and all risks without having that deposit cover. The suggested pet insurance proposal is clearly a nonsense as we all know.

In what universe would an MP or other pet promoter allow into their own properties some of the pets creating the horror stories noted in this thread, with the added privilege of having to clear up the mess and paying for the damage caused?

I say this as a dog lover and owner. The difference is that my dog lives in my property and that’s my choice. She is also trained to behave well, both in my home and elsewhere. Landlords have no such choice or control over tenants’ pets.

Reply to the comment left by Freda Blogs at 06/12/2024 - 12:02
I agree, the 5-week cap on deposits is a major issue, plus it's harder to get the tenant to agree to any amount to be deducted because it is so easy for tenants to challenge the deductions by going to the deposit scheme and it is up to the landlord to prove that the deductions are valid and appropriate, which is a massively time-consuming process. Suddenly, your lovely 'fluffy' tenant turns into a Rottweiler denying all knowledge and possibility that their dogs and cat urinated all over the carpets and that no-one ever visiting the property mentioned a smell. I always thought it was the 'elephant in the room' when we visited but turns out it was definitely the dog and cat odour! The TDS dispute process now expects you to try to resolve the issues before adjudication by using self-resolution on their system, this is all reasonable in principle, except you are dealing with 'entitled' people with the mentality of small children who may genuinely believe that they have done nothing wrong other than 'making your property their home'. They are encouraged by CAB to take on the nasty landlord and make sure they don’t keep a penny more or 'their deposit'. It's all very well it being viewed as the 'tenant's money' but what about the landlord's losses which extend beyond the actual damage caused. As it’s currently so easy for tenants to challenge deposit deductions, what fresh hell is going to be released when they can challenge rent increases too?!

What is laughable is the very last sentence “Landlord will be permitted to require insurance”.
People have already pointed out that any compensation would be paid to the policy holder, so good luck with getting any of that.
But importantly, household pet insurance only covers accidental damage - e.g. a dog smashing a lamp while jumping on a sofa. No insurance I know of covers urine damage to carpets or chewed or scratched up woodwork.
So unless insurers come up with new products to fill that void, these damages will remain excessive to wear and tear and limited to deposit, and any insurance taken by the tenant completely irrelevant.

I had the downstairs ceilings all come down after water from upstairs fish tank filters was allowed to leak over a long period of time, soaking the carpets, floorboards and ceilings.
Was this damage caused by the fish in the tank or the tenant?
Pets are a nope from me, even for fish tanks.

Oh, and I still can't get the smell out of my nostrils from the urine soaked carpets, floorboards, and rafters which had to be replaced when the playful little puppy got old and incontinent. Can we insist that tenants have their pets euthanised if they start to urinate or defecate in the house?