Pets. They are considered part of the family by most people who own them.
About 80 million American households have a dog or a cat alone. With so many people having pets, you may need to consider allowing pets in a rental property that you own.
With that in mind, you do take on additional risk by going this route. That is why it is wise to have a landlord pet policy in place.
What should you include in this pet agreement? What types of pets should you allow?
This is your guide.
Pet Fee
The first thing that you should consider putting into any pet policy is a pet fee. This is expected in most cases because by allowing pets, landlords are exposing themselves to more risk of property damage or angry tenants. They are also likely going to have higher maintenance expenses accounting for pets too.
Pet fees can be as little as $50 or even up to $500. Nevertheless, this should be something that is decided in advance and you should make this clear to a tenant before they move in.
Limiting Types of Pets
Another thing that you should do is specify what types of pets you are going to allow on your property. The reason for this is that if you keep the term too broad, you could open yourself up to unexpected pets.
For example, there are people out there that keep snakes and rats as pets. You most likely do not want to have those animals in your building and quite frankly, the other tenants would not be pleased either.
Specify what types of pets you allow in your building. Given the statistic above, you should seriously consider at least allowing dogs and cats considering how popular they are.
Other suggestions could be animals that are small and low maintenance like a turtle, a fish, or a hamster.
Determining Sizes of Pets Allowed
Along with the types of pets you allow, you should specify what size pets you allow. With certain animals, they come in vastly different shapes and sizes.
Let's look at dogs for example. You could have a small dog that is under 20 pounds, a medium sized dog that is between 20-60 pounds, or a large dog that is greater than 60 pounds.
If you are looking to avoid having bigger dogs in your building, you need to put a weight limit on what dogs are allowed. This can be banning any dog that weighs more than 60 pounds or even banning any dog that weighs more than 20 pounds.
You need to determine what your comfort level is with this and what your other tenants' comfort level is.
Create a Landlord Pet Policy
Now that you have read these three tips, you can start the process of creating a landlord pet policy. Remember to mention the types of pets allowed, the size of pets allowed, and a possible extra fee for pets.
Do you need help with policies like this? Message us with your questions today.
