Renters' Rights and the Proper Approach to Pets
Originally published - November 6, 2025
With the Renters’ Rights Act now in force and us heading towards implementation I am increasingly being asked by landlords and agents about consent for pets. I was recently speaking with a journalist on this topic and found myself using the meme “it's not about you”.
While this might seem facetious, what I mean by this is that frequently landlords and their agents will give reasons for wanting to say no to pets that are entirely to do with them and their personal viewpoints on pets. So, for example, people will say to me that they don't want pets in their property or, more usefully, that they have a potential allergy to pet hair and might want to live in the property again themselves. There also seems to be quite a narrow assumption for most landlords and agents that pets that we mean cats and dogs, while the definition of pets is not limited in the RRA. Of course most people have cats and dogs as pets but there are a lot of other possibilities. There is also the point that cats and dogs are not all the same. There are wide variations in size, exercise needs, allergens and space requirements. The current thinking for a lot of landlords and agents is quite one dimensional in relation to pets.
A Better Approach to Pets
I would suggest that a far better approach is in two steps but is tightly focused on the specific question of whether the pet being asked for is compatible with the specific property. This requires a move beyond simply talking about pets as a generic concept but a specific question about the actual pet the tenant is asking for. So step one is to consider exactly what pet the tenant is after and the key factors associated with that pet that are likely to be linked to the property.
The second stage is to consider the property and what sort of pet it is likely to be compatible with. For example, if I am letting out a large country house with five acres of garden and associated fields then that is likely to be compatible with a very wide range of pets up to and including animals such as sheep or horses and a fairly unlimited range of cats and dogs. However, a small terrace house in a city with no garden to speak of is likely to be compatible with a smaller range of pets which might include fish, small animals such as hamsters, and dogs and cats. Horses are not like to work out well! Likewise, a studio flat is going to be compatible with an even smaller range of pets which might include small dogs, house cats, and the aforementioned fish and hamsters.
Risk Mitigation
The final step once a decision has been taken to accept a pet is to think about mitigating risks. Nothing in the legislation specifies that a landlord cannot apply reasonable conditions to a pet consent, provided that they are reasonable. I would expect that most landlords would want to identify the type and numbers of pet they are consenting to and may also wish to impose reasonable limits on care to avoid nuisance to neighbours and damage to property.
Conclusion
The key point with pet consents is that most people are not really asking the right questions at the moment. There is too much focus on how an individual landlord feels about pets in their property. The proper consideration should involve much more specific questions, which are unconnected to personal opinions and relate to a question of compatibility between pet and property. This is a more legally consistent approach and one that is far more likely to come up with an answer that can be justified in court or before a landlord redress scheme.
Or if you want the short version, it is not about you, it’s about the pet.