Fish, Pet Clauses and Overkill: Why the ROI on Vendor Pet Packs Just Isn’t There
I’m not saying that because I don’t sell pet clause packs. I don’t sell pet clause packs because they are a waste of money for property managers, at least for now.
We are starting to see landlords ‘lose’ pet disputes not because they are anti-pets but because their paperwork is bloated, unfocused and tries to out-legislate the Residential Tenancies Act (“the Act”). This aquarium case is a masterclass in how not to pet clause.
The fishy problem
In a nutshell: The tenant has a soft spot for aquariums. Not one, not two, but possibly 10 or more. The property manager, understandably nervous, agrees to the aquariums but tries to wrap its permission in eight separate pet clauses. The Tribunal looked at those clauses and says, “Nope.”
The adjudicator characterises all 8 clauses as either inappropriate or unnecessary and goes on to replace the whole Frankenstein’s-Monster clause pack with one simple condition: no more new aquariums and no more than the two current ones in the house. That’s it.
While this is not legal precedent, it is a signal to landlords: do not over-engineer your pet conditions if you want the Tribunal to rubber stamp its approval on them. And this reinforces my view that, at least for now, the ROI on generic, vendor-provided pet clause pacts is just not there.
The pet clause industrial complex
Ok, calling it an industrial complex is generous. There are really not that many players in this space. But the prevalence of ‘premium pet packs’ and ‘plug-and-play pet clauses’ warrants rebute. They promise certainty, protection and ‘compliance’. In practice, they deliver nothing but operational clutter.
I’ve been engaged on several pieces of work recently to critique these vendor clause sets using a traffic-light system.
🟢 Well-drafted, necessary, (generally) enforceable clauses get a green light;
🟠 Clauses that are clumsy, unnecessary and not likely enforceable are amber;
🔴 Clauses that are inappropriate and (generally) unenforceable get a red.
Over 85% of what I see is either amber or red. That’s an astonishing bad hit rate for something people are paying extra money to bolt on to their agreements.
Most of the time their ROI falls through the floor because the Act already does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Section 40 requires tenants to keep premises reasonably clean and tidy and to avoid or repair damage.
Section 49B makes tenants 100% liable for damage that results from the keeping of pets.
And when you pay someone to write clauses that just restate these sections in longer, scarier language, you are just spending money to piss the tenant off.
And this Tribunal order shows what happens when clumsy clauses land in front of an adjudicator whose job is to stay faithful to the Act.
Eight clauses, one problem: Overkill
Taking my own scalpel to the property manager’s eight clauses in this instance*:
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This is an attempt to micro-manage how the tenant arranges their own living space and treads dangerously close with interfering with quiet enjoyment and adds nothing you can’t address through existing damage rules.
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This is unnecessary given that s40 already requires the tenant to keep the premises reasonably clean and tidy and not damage the property. All this does is to repeat the section. You don’t have better rights when you say the rule twice.
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Again, this just regurgitates an existing section (s49B) and conveniently ignores the landlord’s s49 duty to mitigate. See my comment for (b).
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S40 already bites if the tenant allows the premises to become unclean or unsanitary. A bespoke ‘smell clause’ isn’t going to give you extra rights.
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Complete overreach. You are forcing the tenant to incur a recurring cost whether or not there is any evidence of a pest issue. If the aquarium causes an infestation, the tenant will be on the hook for the damage and remediation anyway. The clause tries to fix a problem that might never exist with a solution that may not be proportionate when it does. Nothing but legal cosplay.
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Sounding tough and “commercial” doesn’t do away with the glaring red flag. The tenant is already suppose to leave the premises reasonably clean and tidy and compensate you for actual damage. “Professional standard” invites betterment. You end up in a fight not just about damage, but about whether the landlord is using the clause to upgrade the property at the tenant’s expense. Enforceability aside, this is just bad optics.
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This is where theory and reality part ways. On paper it looks like clever risk management. In practice it is unenforceable so long as the tenant uses the premises primarily for residential purposes; it is also impossible to monitor without turning into a private investigator. Are you trawling Facebook Marketplace and stalking your tenant on TradeMe? Will you be creating burner accounts to pose as a buyer? Who are you? Inspector Clouseau?!
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We’re back re-writing the statute and sneak in an insurance requirement. Tenants are already fully liable for damage resulting from the keeping of pets (s49B). Landlords cannot compel tenants to take out contents insurance, because the Act does not require it and the insurance protects the tenant’s loss, not the lanldord’s. So half of the clause is redundant and the other half is inappropriate.
It’s hardly a surprise the Tribunal cut through all of this and landed on a single and simple condition: no more new aquariums, Ms Tenant, you already have 10. Because when all is said and done about this case, the beating heart of the actual risk for the landlord is proliferation.
No precedent but the signal is loud and clear
One order does not rewrite the law. It’s not going to bind other adjudicators and it won’t appear in law textbooks. But it does reveal judicial instinct. And the instinct here is loud and clear: when a landlord comes armed with a multi-page list of bespoke pet rules that either restate the Act, overreach, or are practically unenforceable, not only will the Tribunal not give them its blessing, when appropriate, it will pare things back to what is reasonable and necessary to enable tenants to have pets.
That’s why the ROI on vendor pet clause packs is so poor right now. You pay for volume but the Tribunal rewards focus.
As a service provider, I’m simply not comfortable telling people that a bought-in clause pack is their silver bullet. We need more Tribunal commentary, more real-world testing, and more calibration before anyone can credibly market “enforceable by design” pet conditions at scale. Until then, the only honest sales pitch is: this is a starting point, not a legal shield.
What a genuine “yes” to pets looks like
Under the current rules, the starting point for tenants’ requests for pets is “yes”. And your conditions should make it a genuine “yes” and not a weaponised yes designed to scare tenants into thinking they are one fish away from eviction.
Good pet conditions share four traits:
Strategic: They target real, identifiable and expect risks and don’t try to micro-manage where a fish tank can sit or whether a tenant can sell Nemo on the side.
Smart: They leverage the Act and use relevant sections as baselines to build on only where the law leaves legitimate gaps.
Enforceable: They are drafted in line with s11 so the Tribunal can realistically uphold them. This means they don’t contradict the statute and don’t create betterment for the landlord.
Trackable: You can actually monitor compliance without stalking your tenant online or add unnecessary operational complexity. If you need a private investigator and three burner profiles just to catch a breach, the clause is doing you more harm than good.
Take the “no commercial breeding” clause: even if the Tribunal gives its blessing, what is your enforcement pathway in practice? Let’s say you catch the tenant selling fish online. You spend time and headspace gathering screenshots, filing an application and going to Tribunal. Best case, you get an order to stop breeding or remove some aquariums. Meanwhile, you’ve just dialled up the temperature in a previously functioning tenancy. And for this particular tenant, who says the fish support her mental health, you’ve just become Public Enemy #1. Good luck managing the tenancy from here.
Less ink, more judgment
The real lesson here is don’t outsource judgment to volume. Landlords and property managers need better instincts, not longer agreements. Start from yes. Identify genuine risks. Write the fewest, clearest conditions you need to manage those risks in a way the Tribunal can back. Then stop. Let the tenant get on with her life.
If you are curious about the pet conditions you are currently using, a practical next step is to put them through a traffic-light audit:
🟢 Green: clearly lawful, necessary and trackable;
🟠 Amber: legally doubtful, redundant with the Act or hard to enforce;
🔴 Red: very likely unenforceable, overreaching or relationship-poisoning.
More than 85% of vendor-supplied clauses I’ve reviewed are in the amber/red pile. That’s a failed business model if there ever is one.
*Not legal advice.
