The pet request right: what a landlord can and cannot refuse

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 gives every assured tenant the right to request permission to keep a pet, and obliges the landlord not to refuse unreasonably. It is not a right to keep a pet regardless. It is a right to a considered answer.

How the process works

1. The tenant makes the request in writing, identifying the animal.
2. The landlord responds in writing within the statutory period — consent, or refusal with reasons.
3. Where the landlord is themselves a leaseholder and the head lease forbids pets, they must seek the superior landlord's consent, and the clock allows for it.

Silence is not neutral. Failing to respond within the period is treated as the refusal being unreasonable. A request that sits in an inbox becomes a consent by default in practical terms — this is the single most common way landlords fall foul of the provision.

What is likely to be reasonable

• A superior landlord's refusal, or a head lease that prohibits animals — you cannot grant what you do not have.
• The animal is unsuited to the property on identifiable grounds: a large dog in a studio with no outside space, an animal requiring a licence the tenant does not hold.
• Demonstrable practical obstacles — an allergy affecting others sharing the building, or a restriction the freeholder imposes.

What is not

• "No pets" as a blanket policy. A clause banning pets outright cannot survive a request that must be considered on its facts.
• Generalised worry about damage. The Act contemplates insurance as the answer to damage risk, not refusal.
• Preference. Not wanting animals in the property is not a reason the provision recognises.

Insurance, deposits and what you may not charge

A landlord may require the tenant to maintain insurance covering pet damage, or may take out that insurance and recover the reasonable cost from the tenant. That is the mechanism the Act provides for the risk.

What you may not do is take a larger deposit or charge a "pet fee". The deposit cap is unchanged — five weeks' rent where annual rent is under £50,000, six weeks at or above it — and a pet premium on top of the rent, or any charge outside the permitted payments in the Tenant Fees Act 2019, is a prohibited payment.

What a wrong refusal costs

Unreasonably refusing a pet request is a breach carrying a civil penalty of up to £7,000, rising to up to £40,000 or prosecution for a repeat breach. See our fine calculator for how that sits against your other exposure.

Practical steps

1. Diarise the response deadline the day a request arrives. Late is refused, and refused-by-silence is unreasonable.
2. Answer in writing with reasons, even when consenting — it is the record you will want.
3. Check the head lease before you let, not when a request arrives.
4. Use insurance, not refusal, where the concern is damage.