Pets in a rented home: the request must be considered, the refusal justified

"No pets" used to be a line in the advert and the end of the conversation. Now a tenant can ask to keep a pet, the landlord has to consider the request, and refusing it needs a valid reason.

How does the right work?

You can ask to keep a pet in the property. Your landlord must consider your request and should give you a reason if they refuse.

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The landlord guidance puts the same rule from the other side, and more sharply: you can only refuse if you have a valid reason.

This applies to private renting in England. Tenants of housing associations and councils, people in student halls, and lodgers renting a room in the owner's own home fall under different rules.

What counts as a reasonable refusal?

There is no single list, and that is deliberate. The government's guide to the Act says it plainly: landlords are required to fully consider all requests on a case-by-case basis, and it would not be possible to legislate for every situation given the diversity of landlords, tenants and properties.

One case is named outright: it will always be reasonable for a landlord to refuse where their superior landlord prohibits pets. That is the familiar situation of a flat where your landlord's own lease bars animals.

What if you are refused and the reason looks thin?

You can escalate the complaint to the Private Rented Sector Ombudsman, or take the case to court. A final decision will be based on the evidence provided by both parties.

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Which leads to the practical point: keep the request and the answer in writing. Correspondence is that evidence; a verbal no in the hallway is not.

Can a landlord charge a "pet deposit"?

No. The list of permitted payments is closed and contains no separate pet charge. There is a refundable tenancy deposit, and its cap does not move because an animal is involved: five weeks' rent where the annual rent is below £50,000, six weeks between £50,000 and £100,000.

Nor can a landlord require you to take out insurance or enter a contract for a service as a condition of the tenancy. You may buy insurance if you want to; being made to pay for it is a different matter.

And if the pet damages the property?

The guide answers this simply: tenants pay a tenancy deposit, which can be used for damage. In the rare case where the deposit does not cover the cost, the landlord could take the tenant to court to recoup the rest, in line with wider rules in the sector.

So liability for damage has not gone anywhere. What changed is something else: the absence of a right even to ask.

How to open the conversation

Put the request in writing and make it specific: what animal, what size and age, whether it has lived in rented housing before. The more specific the request, the harder it is to refuse in the abstract.

If your tenancy agreement still carries a blanket "no pets" clause, that does not settle it by itself: private tenancies in England have run under the new rules since 1 May 2026, and old wording does not remove the duty to consider a request.

And find out in advance whether there is a superior landlord above yours with a pet ban. It is the one reason the guidance names as always reasonable, and it is better discovered before you buy the carrier.