Renting a flat with a dog when the lease does not permit pets

Help1234

Hello, I live in a block of flats and have had a letter put through my door which says following a recent meeting of the directors please see points relating to the block for your info.

One of the points says:
In line with the terms of the lease, residents are not permitted to keep pets. Owners please ensure tenants are made aware of this when advertising your flat.

The people below me are renting their flat and have a dog which barks sometimes on a daily basis, on occasion it has been disruptive therefore a couple of months ago I contacted the block management to find out if the owners knew about the dog. The management confirmed the owner let the flat to these people privately and gave permission for the dog. 

How can this be? Can permission from an owner/block management override the terms of the lease? This week has particularly annoyed me because the dog has barked excessively in the very early hours and woke me up on a few occasions.

Mgman1965

Help1234 said:

Hello, I live in a block of flats and have had a letter put through my door which says following a recent meeting of the directors please see points relating to the block for your info.

One of the points says:
In line with the terms of the lease, residents are not permitted to keep pets. Owners please ensure tenants are made aware of this when advertising your flat.

The people below me are renting their flat and have a dog which barks sometimes on a daily basis, on occasion it has been disruptive therefore a couple of months ago I contacted the block management to find out if the owners knew about the dog. The management confirmed the owner let the flat to these people privately and gave permission for the dog. 

How can this be? Can permission from an owner/block management override the terms of the lease? This week has particularly annoyed me because the dog has barked excessively in the very early hours and woke me up on a few occasions.

Be careful they don't find out you snitched on them or you may find 💩💩💩 through your letterbox or bags of it on your door handle.

Renters don't have a lot to lose, and can just move on after making your life hell, many literally don't give a 💩.

Help1234

I didn’t snitch on them I just asked if the owner was aware and they confirmed they were aware and did I want to report an issue and I said no. This was a couple of months ago. The letter referred to lots of things in general like the bins, garages etc.

eddddy

Help1234 said:

The management confirmed the owner let the flat to these people privately and gave permission for the dog. 

How can this be? Can permission from an owner/block management override the terms of the lease? 

No - permission from the management company can't override the lease.



Just to be clear, does your lease have covenants similar to the following:


Covenant by the lessee / tenant / leaseholder (i.e. you):

• Not to keep pets in the flat

Covenants by the lessor / landlord / freeholder

• That every lease of a flat in the Building granted by the Landlord will contain covenants of a similar nature to those contained in this Lease
• The Landlord will enforce any covenants with the Landlord by a tenant of any flat

It's usual to have covenants like that in a lease - and assuming yours does, you can insist that the freeholder takes enforcement action to remove the pet.


(But you might have to agree to cover the freeholder's enforcement costs, if they can't get them back from the other flat owner.)

lookstraightahead

Mgman1965 said:

Help1234 said:

Hello, I live in a block of flats and have had a letter put through my door which says following a recent meeting of the directors please see points relating to the block for your info.

One of the points says:
In line with the terms of the lease, residents are not permitted to keep pets. Owners please ensure tenants are made aware of this when advertising your flat.

The people below me are renting their flat and have a dog which barks sometimes on a daily basis, on occasion it has been disruptive therefore a couple of months ago I contacted the block management to find out if the owners knew about the dog. The management confirmed the owner let the flat to these people privately and gave permission for the dog. 

How can this be? Can permission from an owner/block management override the terms of the lease? This week has particularly annoyed me because the dog has barked excessively in the very early hours and woke me up on a few occasions.

Be careful they don't find out you snitched on them or you may find 💩💩💩 through your letterbox or bags of it on your door handle.

Renters don't have a lot to lose, and can just move on after making your life hell, many literally don't give a 💩.

Lots of house owners are like this as well. 

Kyresa

Very common for a lease to say not to keep pets without the express permission of the freeholder/management company which can be withdrawn at any time. 

so as leases are mostly issued on similar terms, check your lease to see how it is worded.   

canaldumidi

The problem is that the tenant's contract is with their landlord. And he has gven them permission for the dog.

But the landlord's lease with the freeholder/management company prohibits dogs. So stritly speaking it is the landlord (leaseholder) who is in breach. His tenants have done nothig wrong - indeed would have had no way of knowing what the lease said.

The freeholder could take action against the leaseholder (landlord) for the lease breach. If he in turn forced his tenants to get rid of the dog (or end the tenancy), the tenants could sue him since (as I said) they have done nothing wrong.

CasaCroft8

We had this precise issue 7.5 years ago. Partner and I wanted to move in together. We also wanted to get a small dog. Found a perfect gf flat In ideal location. Got permission from ll and had it written into tenancy. 5 days after getting this little puppy bam received a letter from the block management get rid of this dog in 2 weeks. Which of course we didn't. They had to wait until we found somewhere else which happened to be another of the 'll properties where we stayed for 7 years. But yes landlords really need to check their leases before doing this to tenants who have no idea about such things.

canaldumidi

A sensible landlord of a flat subject to a lease will write a simple clause into the tenancy agreement requiring the tenant to comply with all terms of the lease.

And attach the lease to the tenancy agreement!

Windofchange

We had similar in the last rental property we were in before buying, except we had a cat. We just ignored it and lived there with the cat for 2.5 years quite happily - just made sure when the landlord came over for a yearly inspection that puss was in her travel basket at a friends house for an hour or two and there was no sign of her in the house. I guess a dog is perhaps a bit more difficult to hide as it will make more noise and need taking out for walks daily, so greater chance of getting busted. Not saying that doing what I did constitutes sound advise, but we liked the house and had a cat, so just got on with it. 

Flugelhorn

might explain my relentless sneezing - bought a flat where there are no pets allowed but suspect there might have been a wretched cat here - caused me a load of grief. Much better since the carpets have been cleaned.