Unauthorised Pet!

fozzeh

Lily-Rose wrote: »

What?

5 year old?

If you want my views; leave them alone with their cat. They and their cat are causing you no harm.

Sorry, I didn't divulge that I was with my children at the time! Not sure how relevant it was to the original question posed...but that is who saw the cat; my daughter.

RuthnJasper

It's a cat. I don't, personally, view that as a problem. If the place was looking utterly run-down, or there were rumours of the place being used as a crack-den - THAT would be a problem.

If they are otherwise good tenants, who pay on time, I would be thankful for that and let them and the cat be. The time to 'kick-off' would be if they vacated the property and left it in an unreasonable condition.

fozzeh

RuthnJasper wrote: »

It's a cat. I don't, personally, view that as a problem. If the place was looking utterly run-down, or there were rumours of the place being used as a crack-den - THAT would be a problem.

If they are otherwise good tenants, who pay on time, I would be thankful for that and let them and the cat be. The time to 'kick-off' would be if they vacated the property and left it in an unreasonable condition.

I didn't mention that the curtains in the house were solid black lined and floor length over every light shedding place...

:eek:

cloo

If they're otherwise good tenants, I'd ignore. No need to rock the boat. My tenants got a mog, though I'm pretty sure AST said 'no pets' and they put some stuff on the wall when the agreement said it wasn't allowed, but they're great tenants so I've not made anything of it.

Manchee

At the end of the day, regarding asking permission, what you would have done (or anyone else) is irrelevant. All that's relevant is the fact that they have a cat and the question of what you want. You can either ignore it or issue a s21. I wouldn't ask them to remove the cat as chances are, either they will lie and say they have or look to move anyway. And that's assuming its theirs.

I have to agree regarding the comments about how some LLs seem to need to let go and realize that it isn't their place anymore. Sure you may have your name on the deeds, but you have rented out the right to call that property 'home'. You need to stop looking on it as your place.

So what do you want? Do you want them to leave or do you want them to stay, simple as. If they stay you will have to accept the cat will be staying too.

MartynK

You can either

Get them out, or let them stay

If you are happy for them to stay, then get the Agent to do an inspection and "discover" this cat and tell them its not allowed and you are likely to have to charge professional cleaning out of the deposit.

Although I'm sure I read that "No Pets" in ASTs was deemed unfair in contracts, although I'm not 100%

Lily-Rose_3

cloo wrote: »

If they're otherwise good tenants, I'd ignore. No need to rock the boat. My tenants got a mog, though I'm pretty sure AST said 'no pets' and they put some stuff on the wall when the agreement said it wasn't allowed, but they're great tenants so I've not made anything of it.

Agree with this. ^^^ Now this is the kind of landlord to be.

Manchee

Maybe another way to look at this is that the tenant is more likely to be careful about any damage the cat may cause as they need to keep it hidden; maybe more careful than if you officially knew about the cat?

fozzeh

Manchee wrote: »

At the end of the day, regarding asking permission, what you would have done (or anyone else) is irrelevant. All that's relevant is the fact that they have a cat and the question of what you want. You can either ignore it or issue a s21. I wouldn't ask them to remove the cat as chances are, either they will lie and say they have or look to move anyway. And that's assuming its theirs.

I have to agree regarding the comments about how some LLs seem to need to let go and realize that it isn't their place anymore. Sure you may have your name on the deeds, but you have rented out the right to call that property 'home'. You need to stop looking on it as your place.

So what do you want? Do you want them to leave or do you want them to stay, simple as. If they stay you will have to accept the cat will be staying too.

The original question was answered so we're ok there.

TBH, I would have preferred them to have asked. They're generally good tenants, had 4 minor moans about the property (2 which were down to the weather and/or slamming doors, 1 when we said they couldn't paint something and 1 saying they didn't want a rent rise...). I would think honesty is the best policy.

Manchee wrote: »

Maybe another way to look at this is that the tenant is more likely to be careful about any damage the cat may cause as they need to keep it hidden; maybe more careful than if you officially knew about the cat?

...or maybe it's a howling guard cat which makes the owners aware when the Old Bill are coming so they can flush their supply?

Manchee

fozzeh wrote: »

...or maybe it's a howling guard cat which makes the owners aware when the Old Bill are coming so they can flush their supply?

Lol howling guard cat - awesome! If it was I would assume they would want to keep hold of it even more (I mean think of the time it would take to train!!), so would be even more careful about damages