Leasing to Tenants with Pets

Pets are adorable, but sometimes they are a bit too unruly and wild to adjust to life within an upscale condo, a well-furnished vacation house, or an urban apartment that lacks a cat or dog door. Problems arise for landlords, involving everything from noisy dogs who bark and keep neighbors awake to pesky kittens who mistake the carpet for a play toy and rip it to shreds. But lots of us own pets, and want to bring them along when we lease a place to live. For that reason, the real estate industry has long relied on contractual agreements that help to make life easy on pet owners, while remaining fair to landlords who have to deal with pet damage.

If you are leasing to someone who has pets – or are planning to lease from someone who allows you to have pets in their building – you will likely want to sign a so-called “Pet Agreement”, which is just a contract stipulating how to handle problem pets. Most pet agreements involve a security deposit that will be refunded if there are no problems, or which can be retained by the landlord in the event of pet damage and needed repairs.

Consult a Realtor or real estate attorney, and ask them to provide you with standard pet agreement contracts. Have them go over them with you and answer all your questions, and then enter into your lease with the comfort and security of knowing that you planned ahead for whatever might accidentally jump up and bite you in the bank account.

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Real Estate Investing