Renters’ Rights Act sparks rise in pet ownership

If a landlord claims on insurance for pet damage.
The insurance company should be able to make a claim against the tenants to recoup all costs to help encourage responsible pet ownership.

Reply to the comment left by John Hole at 18/08/2026 – 09:49
It probably depends on the insurance policy, but would be good if they did make tenants ultimately liable for the loss.

In the meanwhile, some landlords will be second-guessing whether or not a prospective renter is likely to take on a dog, and use it as a factor in deciding whether or not to take them on.

If nearly half of renters (44%) have taken on a ‘pet’ then this is a big issue: Mis-managing animals is human anti-social behaviour, not an ‘animal’ problem. When Labour introduced the Labour Renters Rights Act they removed no-fault evictions; these were the only powers that landlords used to have enabling them to deal with anti-social behaviour (such as mis-managed animals) and Labour gave landlords no other powers, but instead left it to tribunals to decide whether landlords were behaving unfairly if they refused a request to have a pet. However, labour ALSO refused to publish its justice impact test on the courts:

https://www.property118.com/government-refuses-to-reveal-renters-rights-bill-court-impact-assessment/

I like dogs and have four but I do not rent, and am a home owner.

I also have a number of cats where the tenant has abandoned them.

The problem is often with the smell in the carpets. The outgoing tenant may have the carpers professionally cleaned but cannot get rid of the smell of dogs.

Sometimes, I have had to replace the carpers and that was any profit for a six month tenancy gone!

To attempt to recover that money through the courts is is going to be fruitless.

It takes often years to get to court and the claimant landlord has to prove his claim.

The defendant tenant has only to say he disputes the claim.

So how do you prove it?

Unlike damage you cannot photograph a smell.

If you allow pets then be clear of the difficulty in proving your case in court.

A insurer will avoid the claim for that reason.

It becomes an uninsured risk.

Reply to the comment left by Fergus Wilson at 18/08/2026 – 14:25
Most UK insurers say standard home or pet insurance does not cover damage your pet causes to your home, because pet behaviour is unpredictable and hard to assess — but some premium policies or accidental damage add‑ons may include it, often with exclusions and extra cost:

https://www.moneysupermarket.com/home-insurance/pet-damage/

Anybody who has taken a look at the detail of the wording of the Labour Renters Rights Act will realise that Landlords aren’t given any choices other than to raise rents generally because the Labour Renters Rights Act doesn’t make it clear to Landlords that they can require extra insurance, levy fees for extra insurance, or require tenants to provide evidence of insurance covering the extra risks. If a landlord refuses a pet the landlord risks having to go to a tribunal….however, the Labour government refused to publish the results of its justice impact test on the courts, and this means that the Labour Renters Rights Act did not get proper public scrutiny.

If the market research figures quoted above are reflective of the rental market this means that 56%, i.e. the majority of renters are going to have to bear the costs of the minority that choose to have pets. It is government that is driving competition out of the market, increasing costs, increasing risks and putting rents up.

We are all a nation of pet lovers. However, if an insurer can avoid a claim they will.

Insurers generally treat pet-damage to a property as a higher‑risk, harder‑to‑predict category than fire or flood damage, and this is reflected in exclusions, higher premiums for pet owners, and the need for optional accidental damage cover:

https://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/guide/accidental-pet-damage/

For UK home insurers pet damage is considered “unpredictable” and “difficult to assess” because animal behaviour varies widely, training levels differ, and incidents can occur without warning. This uncertainty makes it harder for insurers to model the probability and cost of claims.

But the Labour Renters Rights Act gives landlords 28 days to assess the risk of assessing a pet and also imposes a risk upon a Landlord to be taken to a tribunal if the landlord says no….and not only might a landlord not have had any opportunity for any relevant training, a landlord might not even have ever owned a pet.

The only thing that a landlord can do in response to the Labour Renters Rights Act is to raise rents, for everybody, and this includes for the majority of tenants who don’t own a pet.

I dont believe the numbers quoted. However, what these tenants have failed to understand is that whilst a landlord may find it difficult to refuse a pet to an existing tenant, there is no such problem rejecting them if the need to move to a new rental. Landlords are not prohibited from discriminating against those applying for their property with pets and many landlords will. Few tenants are going to be in one rental property for the lifetime of the pet and so they may face major problems when they need to move-on.

According to a well-know UK animal charity, about 50% of UK households own a pet:

https://www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report/paw-report-2024/pet-populations

So there is no reason to suppose that 44% of renters getting a pet would be anything but an entirely reasonable and believable figure. Compare the Market actually says that it is unlikely that a UK insurer would cover your home for pet damage:

https://www.comparethemarket.com/home-insurance/content/home-insurance-whats-covered/

Compare the Market does actually understand some markets because it is the job of insurers to understand risk and markets: However, most labour MPs don’t have any genuine understanding of markets because most labour MPs have never run a business.

This is one of the worst aspects of the renters rights act will stop I’m a pet owner and I adore my pets but I understand what a commitment they are. Post-covid we saw the animal shelters full of animals that their owners had not anticipated the expense of or the work involved. I anticipate in a few years time we will see another influx of pets were tenants did not understand the commitment they were taking on, particularly younger tenants who are trying to build a financial reservoir for themselves. Anyway for me, if a tenant requests are pet, all those carpets are going to get ripped out and replaced with lino because lino is floor covering that is suitable for pets and I just have to provide a floor covering. I don’t have a single carpet in my house but there’s no way I’m paying for engineered wood in any of my rentals.