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As of the 1st £0of June 2019, any tenant who wishes to rent out a property will only be able to pay a maximum of five weeks rent as a holding deposit. Previously, tenants with pets (dogs and cats) have offered a higher deposit to provide extra security for the landlord if they have pets moving into the property with them. However, this option is no longer available because of the Tenant Fees Act legislation.

In the UK, its estimated that 12 million households have dogs and cats with around 51 million pets owned (SOURCE: RSPCA), that is 44% all of the houses within the UK. If you consider that nearly a fifth of the UK housing market is privately rented, this can only mean that millions of pets are already living in private rented accommodation and these families may need to relocate in the future.

In the current rental market, we are finding that there are not enough rental properties to meet the current demand. As a result, we usually receive multiple applications for the same property, and the landlord will have a choice of who they want to accept. Due to a perception from some landlords that pet owners come with a higher risk due to the damage their pets may cause, landlords will sometimes favour applications from tenants who dont own pets. Tenants with pets have historically offered higher deposits as extra security to landlords in the past, which has increased their chances of their application being accepted. However, this will no longer be possible from the 1st £0of June 2019.

For example, for a house that is advertised at £3400.00 per calendar month, the maximum deposit the landlord would be able to receive would be £3461. Previously a pet owner would have paid an extra security deposit to cover the costs of repairing damage caused by a pet.

Safeguarding our landlords

If you rent a property with us at Kingswood Residential, its our standard procedure that we add a specific pet clause within the tenancy agreement which covers the landlord against any damage a tenant’s pet may cause to their rental property. The clause also states that the tenant will need to have any carpets within the property professionally cleaned just before they move out of the property. Providing the terms of the clause are met, the tenant would receive their full deposit back at the end of the tenancy.

The clause we add in the tenancy agreement will protect the landlord against any potential damage caused by a pet owned by their tenants during the tenancy. Therefore, the changes in the Tenant Fees Act won’t be an issue for our landlords, they will be safeguarding their property against damage by pets.

Safeguarding our tenants

We do feel that this change by the government will make life more difficult for pet owners when they are trying to apply for a rental property in a crowded market.

Some pet owners are now offering landlords a higher rent per calendar month as an alternative to a higher deposit which we have seen evidence of since the new legislation came into force earlier this year. Unlike a higher security deposit, the tenant would not receive any of that money back at the end of the tenancy, which would be bad news for any pet owners wishing to rent out a property.

Providing the pet clause is inserted within the tenancy agreement; we would encourage landlords to consider tenant applications with pets. For example, we do find that tenants who own pets do tend to rent longer term, which would be positive for a lot of landlords.

We always have your interests at the centre of all that we do

More and more pet owners are going to need rental accommodation in the coming years. Despite not being able to take a higher deposit, landlords would be ruling out a huge gap in the market if they don’t consider renting out their property tenants with pets.

If you are landlord and want to discuss the pros and cons of renting out your property to pet owners, then please call us.

Christopher Williams MARLA