16 July 2008

Dogs in the UK, struggling to find homes

A disturbing indication of human intolerance. This story from BBCNEWS. Read the full story here

Struggling to find a dog's house
Dog
The Dogs Trust suggests getting a dog reference from previous landlords

Landlords are in the dog-house with a charity which claims that three in four do not allow pets into properties.

Growing demand for rented homes has led to a rise in the numbers of pets being abandoned or handed over to charities to re-home, said the Dogs Trust.

The charity wants landlords to be more open to allowing tenants to keep dogs.

The Association of Residential Letting Agents (Arla) said it was "broadly supportive" of the Trust but it would struggle to change attitudes.

"Pet owners who need to rent privately are being forced to live in unsuitable properties, or rent with their pets without consent from their landlord," said Dogs Trust chief executive Clarissa Baldwin.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The problem often isn't landlords but lettings agents, who draw up overly restrictive rental agreements to cover their own backs. With BTL there's been an increasing trend to buy a property and then just let an agency deal with the difficult stuff.

If you live in an area with low rental demand (relative to the number of properties available), it's often easy to negotiate contract changes (and reduction in rent too). With the credit crunch biting, a landlord would rather have money coming in than have the property sitting empty and no rental income at all.

Don't be afraid to negotiate, when you rent a property it is YOUR HOME and you are paying a huge amount of your income to be able to treat it as such.