We’ve written about pets and tenants before and many of our followers had plenty to say about it when we shared the article on social media, including how difficult it is to find properties to rent where they can live with their pets.
The debate around this usually focuses on dogs, cats and rabbits which make up the vast majority of pets in the UK.
But what many landlords don’t realise when they ban animals from their homes is that they make the lives of pets owners very difficult.
Not only do they make finding a property more difficult for tenants, but they deny single and particularly older renters the chance to have a companion
And for families a pet ban can be problematic - who doesn’t remember growing up with a pet in the house? But for those rent their homes, having family pets is often impossible.
The biggest challenge for renters is finding a landlord or letting agent who will rent a property in the first place. So where do they start? Here’s our guide.
Ask a local letting agent to recommend a pet-friendly landlord
Despite the onslaught of the internet, most of Britain’s high streets are lined with letting agents staffed by people with lots of experience and knowledge of the local property market.
Pop in and ask if they have any pet-friendly landlords with properties available to rent. Sign up to their emails and leave your contact details to ensure you’re the first to get told when a pooch-perfect home is put on the market.
Search ‘pets welcome’ on a portal
Not all the UK’s well-known property portals are pet friendly. But Zoopla is. Search for a rental property using your criteria and then when the results are displayed, click on the ‘filter results’ tab and type in ‘Pets allowed’ in the free text box. Then click ‘add’.
Letting agency OpenRent, which is the largest in the UK, also allows renters to search by ‘pet friendly’. Search for properties and after the results appear, click on the ‘Advanced filter’ button and then tick ‘accept pets’ from the list.
Rightmove enables searches to be filtered via a keyword 'free text' box at the top of the results, but it’s a bit hit-and-miss and unpredictable. The other portal, OnTheMarket, doesn’t have a ‘pets allowed’ filter.
Use a ‘Lets with Pets’ letting agent
Several letting agents have signed up to the Dog’s Trust’s Lets with Pets initiative to persuade more agents and landlords to be sympathetic to renters with pets. Although well-intentioned, only a handful of estate agents have signed up so far. This includes the Bedford branch of Belvoir but also Chancellors, Chestertons and Knight Frank.
Find a build-to-rent development
Build to rent schemes are large purpose-built apartment developments within which a single landlord manages all the properties and where, often, tenants have access to central services including a reception, concierge, communal spaces, bike parking and sometimes even restaurants and cafes.
Many of them also enable tenants to live with their pets and a good example is Essential Living which has locations in Greenwich, Bethnal Green and Islington in London as well as Maidenhead in Berkshire.
The company has allocated floors within each of its developments as ‘pet friendly’ and tenants have to attend a ‘pet interview’, provide an up-to-date veterinary record for their animal and complete a pet licence which costs £90. The company also adds a week’s rent to your the deposit.
Another build-to-rent developer, Tipi, which operates a huge apartment village near Wembley Stadium in North London, operates a ‘pet friendly’ scheme. Several of the towers within the development accept pooches and moggies but tenants pay a small fee every month on top of their rent to have their pet live with them.
CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score
If you want to improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments, CreditLadder is the only way to improve your credit score and position across all four of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax, TransUnion and Crediva. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money.
CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.
Remember the information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.
