Pets at Tenancies: Frequently Asked Curly Questions
Before we get into it
This FAQ assumes you already know the new pet rules cold. I’m not rehashing the basics. What follows is a refinement exercise: the curly, non-obvious, occasionally maddening questions that had been thrown at me in the last few weeks.
If you are playing catch-up, read the nuts and bolts of the new rules here before coming back here for guidance on how to deal with some real-world ambiguities.
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For now? Nothing. No jokes.
Given that the rules are so new and the Tribunal hasn’t yet spoken, there is literally no edge definition that tells you precisely what is in and what is out. Every pet clause doing the rounds is basically a lab rat waiting to be poked and prodded at.
Silence isn’t weakness. Silence is optionality. Hard-coding a clause now shrinks your future room to move. If the Tribunal later draws the line differently, you’re stuck defending the indefensible or in a position you can’t unwind out of.
Wait for the first decisions and the contours they bring. That’s when you can draft your clause with confidence.
If you feel compelled to say something, keep it light and high-level. Signal expectations (e.g. respectful ownership in line with landlord’s consent), do not create a compliance regime that is either unreasonable or that you cannot realistically supervise.
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Boy, so you really have to say something in that agreement 👆 don’t you? Each to their own.
Yes. On the plain wording of the Act, you can*.
The key test in the “existing pets” exclusion is whether, on 1 December, the tenant is already keeping a pet on the premises. If the tenancy does not commence until 2 December, then on 1 December.
the tenant is not yet in occupation,
no pet is being kept at the premises, and
the exclusion provision cannot be triggered.
Because the exclusion is not triggered, the new pet rules apply in full. That includes the ability to require a pet bond, provided the landlord is consenting to the pet.
In other words, the date the agreement was signed is irrelevant. What matters is the date the tenancy commences, and whether a pet is actually kept at the premises immediately before the rules take effect.
*Tenancy Services takes a different view. Their position is that if consent for the pet is given before 1 December, then the situation sits outside the rules and a pet bond cannot be charged. I disagree, respectfully, because the statutory trigger hinges on occupation and the pet’s physical presence at the premises, not the timing of the consent. Ultimately, it will be for the Tribunal, not Tenancy Services and certainly not me, to give the authoritative interpretation. I’m working collaboratively with them to align our understandings, not to score points.
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I’ll maintain the same position as tenancy agreements: stay quiet unless you have a clear, hard, legally defensible reason to say no.
This avoids:
accidentally breaching the Act,
attracting regulatory attention, and
boxing yourself into a pet policy that you can’t justify or that doesn’t serve you later.
That’s the compliance piece. Now for the human piece.
Ads do more than transmit information. They shape who applies. And tenants with pets aren’t one uniform tribe. Some simply happen to own an animal. Others build their entire sense of home around that creature.
A pet-loving tenant often treats the property better, not worse. They clean more because they want their companion living somewhere decent. They stay longer because their dog knows the local path, neighbors, and other dogs it meets every morning. They’re sticky, stable, and deeply invested in the environment you’re renting out.
The signals you send in an ad determine which of these people you attract.
A simple “pets considered” brings you volume.
A more intentional cue brings you alignment:
“Thoughtful pet requests welcomed under fair process.”
“Great match for responsible pet households.”
Short, subtle cues do a lot of sorting. You’re not creating rules. You’re shaping who shows up at the front of the queue.
Use the ad to invite the right kind of interest, not to lock yourself into a rigid stance before the conversation has even started.
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Highly doubtful.
The starting point of these new pet rules is that tenants have a presumptive right to pets, and landlords must consent unless they’ve got real, defensible grounds not to. When the law requires you to say yes, trying to monetise that yes starts looking like a tax on compliance.
Section 28 only lets you lift rent when you’re offering a genuine and significant improvement to the tenancy. Consent to a pet isn’t an upgrade. It’s the baseline the law now demands.
Could a tenant still agree? Sure. People will do strange things for the animal they treat better than their spouse 😬 But that’s not the legal test, and I struggle to see the Tribunal blessing a rent increase tied to something the landlord was already obliged to approve.
If a landlord can package a legitimate, tenant-benefitting improvement around the pet request, maybe there’s daylight. But don’t bank on it. My gut feel is it is more likely than not to be a no.
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Two layers here:
Layer 1: The legal grey zone
No one articulates the state of (legal) play better than Joanna Pidgeon. I’m not even going to pretend to try. The short version: BC pet bans may not be enforceable at all. I also have significant reservations as to whether Dixon is an enduring precedent across tenancy matters.
But here’s the thing, you didn’t get into property management to moonlight as legal scholars 🥱
Layer 2: What is actually your problem as a property manager/landlord?
Not this.
You are not a mini-Court of Appeal. You are not paid to untangle the metaphysics of body corporate governance. Your job is to keep the owner’s investment running and the tenant’s life functioning.
If the BC has passed a rule in the normal way and nothing screams procedural failure, don’t fight someone else’s war. Stay in your lane.
If a tenant wants to challenge the rule, fine. Point them to the Tribunal and let them have at it.
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Start with the basics:
Tenants are never liable for fair wear and tear.
If you allege damage, you must show it’s more than wear and tear.
If you link it to a pet, the tenant must then prove the pet wasn’t the cause.
Depreciation comes in later, only for working out how much compensation the landlord gets.
Tribunal isn’t going to award you a brand-new door frame if the original was ten years old and already scuffed. You get restored to your immediately-pre-damage position, not the glossy-magazine version of it.
So yes, expect the Tribunal to use depreciation concepts to adjust awards. Just don’t confuse this with the legal test for damage. They’re cousins, not twins.
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No.
A pre-1 December no-pet clause is not unlawful, but from 1 December onward it is unenforceable. You cannot rely on it to refuse consent.
The tenant can ask. You must consider the request. You may refuse only on reasonable grounds.
A brand-new tenancy agreement entered into after 1 December with a blanket “no pets” clause? That's an unlawful act. You can be fined up to $1,500. Don’t do it.
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You can file, but I wouldn’t write a victory speech if I were you.
The whole purpose of the reforms is to allow tenants to have pets without increasing landlords’ risk. A tenant who jumps the gun has committed an unlawful act, but the Tribunal’s most likely path is:
Order exemplary damages (if proportionate and appropriate), and
Direct the tenant to apply for consent properly.
Termination? I expect something pretty extreme would have to be involved for the Tribunal to make such a drastic order.
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On its face? Unlikely.
The whole thrust of the Act is to let tenants have pets unless there’s a genuinely defensible reason to refuse. That way I see it: “brand-new carpet” doesn’t cut it. That’s not a reason. That’s a reflex.
If you want a refusal to hold, you have to show you’ve actually hunted for a workable yes first. That means running the alternatives:
Could the dog be kept outside?
Could certain areas be off-limits?
Could conditions manage the risk without nixing the request?
If you haven’t tested the soft landings, the Tribunal will treat your “no” as an evasion, not a justification.
The spirit of these reforms is clear: you look for ways to say yes. Not loopholes to stay comfortable.
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This is an interesting one.
The Act directly lists “tenant failing to comply with relevant bylaws” as a potential reasonable ground. Registration is a bylaw obligation. So, on paper you might think that gives you an easy out.
But:
A registered and unregistered dog poses the same property risk.
Reasonableness is always a contextual inquiry.
If the only issue is registration, then I expect the Tribunal will ask: “Will the tenant registering the dog tomorrow cure this?”
If the answer is yes, then refusing consent may amount to little more than gamesmanship.
Bylaw breaches like exceeding animal-number limits are far stronger grounds than registration status.
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Possibly reasonable. But also the wrong question.
Legally, you can try it. The tenant can push back on quiet enjoyment. The Tribunal will look at the specifics. Fine. But the real issue isn’t “Is this condition lawful?” It’s “Does this condition make sense in the real world?”
Ask yourself:
If someone cares enough about a dog to fight for it, would they really allow it to live like a goat?
If you bake this into the tenancy agreement, how are you verifying compliance?
And will you genuinely enforce it when you discover the dog stepped inside for ten minutes during a storm? Or will you quietly look the other way because you don’t actually want that battle?
A condition is only as strong as your willingness and ability to enforce it. If you can’t police it, it’s not policy. It’s theatre.
The smarter question isn’t “Can I impose this?”
It’s “Does this survive contact with reality?” -
The way I see it: unlikely.
Parliament’s intent is clear: you must say yes unless you have reasonable grounds to say no. “Not toilet-trained” feels like a reason until you poke it. Toilet-training status is objectively unprovable. There’s no evidence standard for it, no independent verification, you literally have to take the tenant’s words for it.
And even if you could prove it, you’d still be solving the wrong problem. Anyone who’s ever owned a dog knows this: a well-trained dog with a careless owner is a far bigger risk than an untrained dog with a responsible one. Peeing on the carpet is only one dimension of risk. Scratching, chewing, noise, poor supervision, lack of boundaries, inconsistent discipline, all of these flow from the human, not the animal.
The real variable isn’t the dog. It’s the owner.
This is where your risk management has to grow up. When every tenant can potentially have a pet, your tenant-vetting process must shift from “Does the dog meet my criteria?” to “Does the human behind the dog demonstrate responsibility, follow-through, and respect for the home?”
Refusing consent on an unprovable characteristic of the dog won’t get you far. Focusing on the tenant’s reliability will.
And then there is expectation setting. Give the tenant agency and clarity:
“If your dog isn’t reliably managed or trained, you may face damage claims. The law makes you 100% liable for any pet-related damage.”
People make better choices when they feel in control. Give your tenant the opportunity to do just that.
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Sometimes, but tread carefully.
In principle, requiring dog training can look reasonable. You’re managing a foreseeable risk, and structured training can improve behaviour. But reasonableness isn’t about what sounds tidy on paper. It’s about whether the condition is proportionate, necessary, and fair in the actual context of this tenant with this dog.
Two realities matter:
Dog training is not a uniform product.
Methods vary wildly. Some are excellent; some are outdated; some are borderline harmful. And even the best training doesn’t guarantee perfect behaviour or eliminate property risk.The core risk is about management, not obedience badges.
A well-trained dog with a negligent owner will still cause chaos. A less-trained dog with a diligent, attentive owner can be low-risk. You are ultimately evaluating the human, not the certificate.
That’s why a compulsory “dog training or no consent” rule is too blunt.
A more legally durable and practically useful approach is this: treat training as one option within a broader expectation of responsible pet management. Then give the tenant the agency to propose how they intend to mitigate risk.
For example, you might say:
“I’m open to consenting, but I need confidence in how the dog will be managed. Dog training is one pathway. If you prefer another approach, please outline your management plan so I can consider it.”
This frames the condition around risk management, not the landlord endorsing a particular training ideology. It also respects the tenant’s autonomy, which makes compliance far more likely.
If the tenant fronts up with a credible, thoughtful management plan (boundaries, routines, supervision, contingencies for accidents) that may be just as effective as formal training. And in many cases, more so.
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No.
The fundamental rule at play here is this: it is now a default landlord obligation to say yes to pets unless there are reasonable grounds to refuse. You don’t get to charge extra for complying with the law.
It is bad optics, too, because you are basically saying, “I’ll break the law unless you bribe me not to.” That is massively inconsistent with the whole point of the reform, which is to enable pets in residential tenancies. Also, the Tenancy Compliance and Investigations Team reads ads too, you know…
Here’s the thing: there are many ways to skin a cat (sorry, I had to 😹). Pet-inclusive tenancies are often worth more. That’s economically, practically and behaviourally true. You don't have to invent two rents; you just have to price your property correctly. There are two clean pathways:
One price at the top of the market from day one because the odds of pets are high
Increase rent lawfully mid-tenancy once a pet arrives, and increase at a big enough increment
That's it - no smoke, no mirrors, no clever gambits begging to be slapped down by the tribunal and the media.
Dual pricing is clumsy. It telegraphs confusion and an intent to avoid the law. It solves a problem you can already solve cleanly with existing mechanisms. If the goal is to reflect pet-related risk and rent, you can do it, but trying to do it with two prices in your ad is like trading your queen for a pawn in the opening. Why would you?!
Pick the tools that work, not the ones that get you in trouble.
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Kind of, but not really.
There is no separate pot of MSD money labelled “pet bond”. Standard MSD bond assistance packages will continue to operate as usual and be tapped out at 4 weeks’ rent. Standard eligibility criteria and validation rules apply.
If an eligible tenant can make the maths math and pay his recoverable bond grant towards the pet bond, he is welcome to.
What MSD will not fund are the ongoing costs of pet ownership (food, vet fees, doggy day care etc). None of that is supported. That’s important to clock, ‘cos you know, pets are expensive.
A very big, neon-flashing rider
Everything you’ve just read is an early interpretation of a brand-new legal regime. The rules go live on 1 December, and the Tribunal hasn’t touched them yet. That means we are operating without judicial guardrails: no decisions, no patterns, no precedents, no track record.
I’m drawing on experience, statutory reading, and a decent sense of how the Tribunal tends to reason. But let’s be honest: I’m also guessing. We all are. Anyone who pretends otherwise is selling you a dream.
So think of these FAQs as Google Maps circa 2005. It will tell you where Finland is, but as to the best way to get there, it will take a few iterations with Tribunal input. For the time being, know that things will change and when they do, I will revisit, recalibrate and rewrite.
