Pets may get rental protection
A law change that would give tenants some rights to keep pets could make a big difference for cat owners while potentially being less useful for dog owners, the SPCA has acknowledged.
Housing Minister Phil Twyford released a discussion document on Monday that said pet owners were finding it hard to find landlords who would accept them in the ‘‘tight rental market’’. At the moment, landlords can refuse any pets, even goldfish, but the Government is looking for ways to help tenants feel more at home in their rental properties, the document says.
The interest of landlords in keeping their properties ‘‘clean and tidy’’ should be balanced against the ‘‘right of tenants to keep pets’’, it says.
While details of any law changes have yet to be finalised, the proposals suggest landlords could still be allowed to refuse pets on the grounds that their properties were unsuitable.
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) chief executive Andrea Midgen said that could potentially make any rule change a ‘‘cat law’’. Landlords who didn’t want dogs might be able to maintain a ban by ensuring their properties weren’t fenced, she said.
However, Midgen questioned the assumptions in the discussion document. ‘‘I live in an apartment and I have a dog and you can make it work.’’
Landlord Lisa Dudson said she was cynical when it came to pets, especially dogs, because of the damage they caused. However, she wasn’t totally against giving tenants some pet rights, despite $28,000-worth of damage being done to a rental property she owned by two sets of tenants who kept dogs there in breach of an agreement.
That was so long as landlords were allowed to charge pet bonds, which is one of the options being considered.
Dudson said she had only got $70 in compensation so far for the damage done to her Auckland rental property.
Midgen indicated the SPCA did not believe it was its place to say whether people expecting to move should be pet owners – any more than saying whether they should have children.