New insurance based approach for ‘pets in lets’ as default

I think I’ll be joining Mick and leaving the buy to let market if this becomes law. We do not at present have a blanket ban on tenants having a pet but would not want to be in a position where we have no control. In the distant past we had two instances which made us very cautious . We allowed a retired accountant to keep a cat. It was only when we had a complaint from a neighbour that the smell of cat was coming through the walls that we found he had seven cats which were not allowed out!
We allowed another tenant to keep a dog. What we didn’t know was that the dog, a bitch was soon to have puppies. All were left at home in the house while the tenants went out to work. When they subsequently “did a runner”we had to throw all carpets. Even then when couldn’t relet for some time until we found a tenant with no sense of smell.

U say it all in your last sentence what I'm about to say.

Have these people not got a clue? Please see my notes below on the subject when we told em what was going happen if they stopped us charging extra deposits to cover our losses just in case pet damaged. As many of us have had. I've had £1000 stairs chewed apart by dogs.
Tell Trading Standards, Landlords just won't take ANY PETS. And that's not nice on the pets nor the owners.

Shelter are getting a bit of a backlash on Twitter for saying Landlords are out of order for charging more for tenants pets. We all told 'em this was gonna' happen if we couldn't insure the potential loss with extra deposit just in case. Now cause Shelter supported scrapping tenant fees ban, reduced deposit etc, ALL ALL tenants with pets are now paying more with no refund if ZERO damage. We can now say Told u so to Shelter. And it's people like me and xxxx that made it clear to Shelter what could happen if they pursue these none understanding of the market policies, so much so that as time goes on, these thick no idea of business inner workings.

Gees, how simple was it when we could just charge higher deposit and those that did no damage got all money back. So so simple.
No better insurance than the tenants own money.
Now look what Shelter and Generation rent and the Govt have done. Made it MUCH MUCH worse for tenants yet again.
My text below I've done before.

From another Landlord:
Landlords: pets are okay if you pay for extra insurance to cover any damage.
Gov: in that case we will make it illegal to charge extra insurance.
LLs: well then we will have to slightly increase deposits for those with pets.
Gov: in that case we will cap deposits at 5 weeks rent.
LLs: okay well we can't really allow pets anymore then.
Gov: in that case we will force you to take tenants with pets.
LLs: well then we have no choice but to increase rent across the board even for tenants without pets.
Gov: oh.
Tenants: why is rent so high??

Reply to the comment left by Tom at 04/06/2021 - 11:22
Yes Tom, They pushing us & pushing us aren't they.

If "three-quarters of landlords are now in favour of damage insurance for pets" why do they need to force Landlords to take pets. Why not just allow Landlords that are happy to take pets charge for the insurance?

I still wouldn't allow pets into my flats. I seem to recall that Boris Johnson and his new wife had a dog in 10 Downing Street that was fouling the place. I feel that these could be defined as responsible people and that the dog as well behaved but look what happened. I also heard that they were keen to keep the dogs behavior out of the papers, I wonder why?

I am now charging extra for every occupant after the first, be that occupant human or animal - I do not discriminate.
I once gave permission for a tenant to have a "few" tropocal fish. The tank he installed weighed nearly a quarter of a tonne. It is little wonder that having purchased the tank he could not afford to pay the rent.

Reply to the comment left by David Price at 04/06/2021 - 12:47
Ha ha brilliant David. Great words funnily put.

Reply to the comment left by Tom at 04/06/2021 - 11:22
I little known trick to eradicate the smell of urine and faeces. Use warm water with biological washing power. It kills the enzymes that create the smell.

The problem with carpets, is the backing 'rubber' and / or the underlay, often chemically react with urine to form a substance that can seal things and stop the water penetrating. This substance can also stick to the flooring surface. By that point everything will need to be thrown anyway. Once your down to the bare floor surface, (it will still stink), scrub it over with white spirit, allow to dry, then use the warm water and washing powder. It works wonders.

Reply to the comment left by Mick Roberts at 04/06/2021 - 11:56
No! It wouldn't be Gov: Oh
It'd be Gov: Oh, we'll bring in rent control then.

Reply to the comment left by neilt at 05/06/2021 - 10:12
Ha ha Yes. But some of us may like that if we get inflationary rent increase from the Govt every year on Universal Credit rates. No more trying to explain to the tenants about rent can's stay the same forever cause of inflation & boilers increasing every year & roof's etc.

As with tenants - there are good ones and bad ones. There are only bad pets. Cats foul everywhere, scratch furniture, and jump over fences to pee in the neighbours garden. We've all seen the clips on youtube about dogs left alone while owners are at work, and the damage they do. Tenants think their pets are the best behaved in the world - until you charge them for the damage and then all hell breaks loose. Tenants never admit the true extent of any damage until you find it when they've moved out. They can't smell the animal smell because they're used to it, but the next time you do a viewing for new tenants its the first thing they will smell when they walk through the door.