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Question Title: Pet bonds
| Question: 361 |
| I was looking at ways of encouraging landlords to consider letting their properties to tenants with pets. At present many are reluctant to do so because of the potential for extra costs at the end of the tenancy. I was thinking of putting in an extra clause in the first schedule of our tenancy agreement (we use the Letting Centre's version through CFP software) to create a pet bond. Would there be any problems with this approach, because there are lots of good tenants out there with pets? The clause would commit the tenant to the cost of specified cleaning of the property at the end of the tenancy and the amount of the bond would reflect these costs. The bond would not be available to cover any other breaches of the tenancy agreement. Are there any problems that you can see with this approach? Would it be considered "unfair" in relation to the Guidance on unfair terms in tenancy agreements?
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| Answer: |
| There does not appear to be any problem with this approach. It would not be covered by the Office of Fair Trading's Guidance on Unfair Terms in Tenancy Agreements as that deals with standard terms that are drawn up in advance and not those that are individually negotiated with the tenant. The amount of the bond would have to reflect the potential cleaning costs at the end of the tenancy and would vary according to the pet and the property.
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References:
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Pages:
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Hyperlinks:
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Letting Update Journal |
Jul 2003 page 13 |
letting-update-journal.html
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Letting Handbook |
Chapter 10 |
letting-handbook-and-factsheets.html
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Letting Factsheet No 10 |
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factsheet-10
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Letting Factsheet No 10b |
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factsheet-10
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For more information, discuss on the Forum
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