So You Lied To Your Landlord About Owning A Pet

Here's what can happen now.


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When renting, it's easy to have a bit of a 'convenient oversight' when it comes to mentioning that you have several pets.

While most people will risk it and opt to just hide their pet on inspection day, it turns out that by keeping your property manager and landlord in the loop, you could save yourself a real headache later on.

According to Kul Singh, executive manager of rent at realestate.com.au, you could be risking a breach of your tenancy agreement by lying about being a pet parent. Plus they almost always know when you're hiding something.

"Every state is different and every tenancy agreement is different," Singh told Triple M.

"But there are 'no pet' clauses in a lot of these agreements, so if you signed up as a tenant to a lease with a 'no pet' clause and haven't told the landlord that you've got a pet, there is grounds for termination or eviction of the pet.

"So you can be evicted, or asked for the pet to be evicted."

Getting down to the nitty-gritty parts of the tenancy agreement you've signed, a breach of the 'no pet' clause could also have some more serious consequences.

"Some of the breaches are of Australian Consumer Law, where you've breached a private agreement," Singh said.

"The pet could be asked to be evicted if there is damage to the property, cleanliness, nuisance to the neighbours."

While there has been talk of introducing greater protections for tenants when it comes to owning pets in Victoria, it remains that the landlord still has the discretion to insist on no pets on the premises.

"You can't discriminate against people's race or gender, but a landlord can request that there is a 'no pets' clause," Singh said.

And while taking the dog for a drive or offloading the cat to a relative for a day may seem like an easy solution, it's the little things that are dead giveaways during inspections.

After all, how else can you explain the claw marks on the lounge or the very substantial amount of hair around the house?

"During routine inspections, it's not hard for the property manager to notice that there is a pet in the household - whether it's fur or even dog or cat food lying around," Singh said.

"There are ways for us to find out, so we always recommend that you're open and honest.

"It's important to be up front with your property manager and landlord and just have a conversation. 

"Not everyone would be open and honest about it, but we would suggest that they should be.

"Every landlord basically wants good tenants that will look after their property. If you're open and honest about having a pet, they'll ultimately just put in a clause to say they want the carpet cleaned and the property fumigated at the end of the lease. And these are reasonable requests.

"It's easy to know if there is a pet staying at the property, so as long as you're the best tenant who's looking after their property - which is one of their biggest assets - then that's all they want."

 

 

 

11 December 2017




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