Hear about one tenant's search for a pet-friendly property
One tenant tells us about her experience finding a pet-friendly property for George the greyhound, and the challenges she faced.
"During January I spent the month trying to find a temporary rental property as our current home is currently going through some major renovations and building work. Our request to Zoopla was to find us somewhere in or around Sevenoaks (up to 5 miles away), any number of bedrooms, furnished or unfurnished, and in reasonable condition. In theory, this doesn't sound too bad and the results bring up 352 available properties.
Except we have one additional requirement; they need to be willing to accept our third family member, George the greyhound.
Add 'pets allowed' to the filters on Zoopla and this gives us only six options. 352 possible properties, reduced straight down to just 6 if you own a pet.
Out of the 6 pet-friendly properties I managed to get a viewing for one, which was unsuccessful as I was told the landlord opted for the tenant with no pets or children. I then started to contact some of the other 352 properties to see if I could persuade any to consider George. In every email I explained that he was a well-behaved dog and we could provide records of his preventative flea, worming and vaccination history. I even started offering a reference from our current neighbour.
We eventually managed to find one that was happy to consider George (with all the reassurances!) and we've just signed the tenancy agreement today.
We're in the fortunate position that this is a temporary rental and we could be flexible with what we were looking for, but we definitely found that trying to find a home for you and your pet can be incredibly limited and stressful."
Here at Lets with Pets we really want to see this change. We want to ensure that more housing options are accessible for pets and their owners and ensure that owning a pet is not a barrier to finding a home.
We've got plenty of top tips and resources to help you in your search to find a pet-friendly property. If you're a landlord or letting agency then we'd love to support you in adopting a 'pets considered' approach - read our advice here.
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