Months later, landlord template sites are still quoting the wrong pet request deadline

Back in June, a number of published landlord guides were citing 42 days as the response window for tenant pet requests under the Renters’ Rights Act.

The correct figure is 28 days. That correction got attention at the time, but with the law now in force and landlords actively relying on these documents, it’s worth checking again: has the error actually been fixed where it matters most?

The answer, in at least one widely-used template provider, is no.

The law is unambiguous

Section 11 of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 inserts new sections 16A and 16B into the Housing Act 1988. Section 16B requires a landlord to give a written response to a tenant’s pet request within 28 days of receipt.

If the landlord asks for further information, the clock can extend by up to 7 additional days from when that information is provided, meaning the absolute maximum window is 35 days, not 42, and only in that specific circumstance.

Miss the 28-day deadline and the request is treated as granted by default. There is no grace period and no second chance.

This is confirmed not just by the text of the Act itself but by independent guidance from letting agents, council housing teams, and legal commentators across the sector, council guidance pages, agency compliance briefings, and tenant-rights resources all converge on the same figure: 28 days.

Why this isn’t a rounding error

A landlord who has read 42 days somewhere and plans their response around it is not being cautious, they are walking directly into a breach.

Picture the scenario: a tenant submits a written pet request on day one. The landlord, working from a template or guide that says 42 days, takes their time, perhaps responding on day 35 thinking they still have a week in hand.

Under the actual law, that response is seven days too late. The request was automatically granted a full week earlier. Any subsequent refusal is not just unwise, it’s legally void, because deemed consent already happened.

This is the kind of error that doesn’t just create inconvenience. It actively strips landlords of a right they believe they still have, while they’re relying in good faith on paid, professionally presented guidance.

Checking the current state of published templates

A review of currently published tenancy template guidance shows at least one prominent UK landlord document provider still describing the pet request response window as 42 days in live, customer-facing product pages, months after the correct figure was first published and circulated.

This isn’t a single archived blog post that slipped through; it’s appearing in active template descriptions for documents landlords are currently purchasing and relying on.

To be clear: this is very likely an honest error, probably inherited from an earlier draft of the Bill as it passed through Parliament, where a longer response period was originally proposed before being amended down to 28 days ahead of Royal Assent. That earlier figure appears to have been baked into content before the final Act text was checked against it, and never corrected.

But honest origin doesn’t change the exposure for the landlord using it. A template provider’s job is to be more current than a free download, that’s the entire value proposition.

When a paid, “compliant” product is wrong on a strict statutory deadline, the landlord using it is worse off than if they’d done no research at all, because they have false confidence instead of healthy caution.

What to do if you’ve already used a 42-day template

If you’ve sent, or are about to send, a pet request response based on a 42-day assumption, check the actual date the request was received and count 28 days from there, not 42.

If you’re already past day 28, the request has likely been automatically granted regardless of what you intended to say, and any refusal you send now will not be valid. If you’re still within the 28-day window, respond immediately rather than waiting for a deadline that doesn’t exist in law.

Going forward, the safest practice is simple: diarise day 25, not day 40. Build in a buffer, not a cushion you don’t actually have.

The broader lesson

This isn’t really a story about one provider’s product description. It’s a reminder that “updated for the Renters’ Rights Act 2025” is a claim, not a guarantee, and the only way to verify it is to check the specific figures against the Act itself — not against whichever guide you found first.

For a strict, deemed-consent deadline like this one, a seven-day error isn’t a footnote. It’s the difference between having a legal right and having already lost it.

David Osborne is the founder of DocPilot, which provides UK legal document templates updated for the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 and Employment Rights Act 2025.