Almost nine out of ten landlords have suffered damage to their rental properties caused by tenants’ pets. Most were unable to recoup cost.

This is the finding of a survey conducted jointly for organisations including the National Residential Landlords Association and ARLA Propertymark.

The survey is an industry response to the Government’s White Paper A fairer private rented sector which proposed tenants be given additional rights concerning pets. Landlords, it was suggested, should not be allowed to unreasonably refuse requests to keep pets.

The data from this research backs up what Propertymark and others have been warning for some time, that the unintended consequences of the Tenant Fees Act have reduced the appetite for many landlords to take on the greater risk of damage, said Propertymark head of policy and campaigns Timothy Douglas.

‘With the demand for pet friendly homes continuing to increase, the UK Government must now see and understand the costs involved for landlords and implement rules that support the sector to take on greater risk in order to support more people to rent with pets’.

For the NRLA, policy manager James Wood said that with many landlords unable to recover damage caused by pets, it is no surprise that landlords generally prefer to let to tenants without pets. ‘Amending the Tenant Fees Act to permit pet insurance or pet deposits would provide this confidence and give tenants with pets more options in the private rented sector’.