By Lucy Murgatroyd
October 28 2019, 17.55
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Kingston-upon-Thames was named in new research as one of the least pet-friendly boroughs for renters in south west London.
Housing experts at sellhousefast.co.uk looked at the number of properties in each London borough to see which is the most welcoming to tenants with pets.
Within the south west London boroughs, Kensington and Chelsea scored the most with a total of 80 properties which allowed pets (houses and flats), in contrast to Kingston-upon-Thames which had just four properties.
Leo Der-Galestanian, lettings manager at Curchods estate agents in Kingston, said: “I personally believe it’s down to the type of landlords who are owning most of the properties in this area and maybe the cultural differences as they’re not used to pets living inside of the properties, a lot of landlords prefer tenants without pets.”
The borough of Wandsworth was placed second with a total of 41 properties, followed by Ealing (38), Lambeth (31), Hammersmith and Fulham (26), Hounslow (23), Richmond (14) and Merton (9).
The tenant fee ban came into play on June 1 and limits the security deposit of properties to just five weeks.
Before that, tenants would be asked up to two months deposit if a landlord was to accept one with animals.
As it’s now been limited to five weeks, fewer landlords are now willing to accept properties or tenants with pets.
About 50 per cent of Curchods applicants in the Kingston-upon-Thames branch have pets and the company encourages this – but they do have to take into consideration what the landlords want for each property.
Mr Galestanian said: “Usually you get a very nice tenant but sometimes they have a cat or a dog that is very much part of the family and the landlord may lose out on a good tenant because they don’t want to accept a dog or a cat.”
He added: “We have come across landlords who do have properties who don’t want to accept pets, we just have to work through it.
“Sometimes the landlord changes their mind through the marketing process.”
In the future they will try to accommodate tenants who would like to rent a property with their pet.
“We would put clauses in the tenancy agreement to protect the landlord for cleaning and things like that but we’ll work on a case-by-case basis depending on the size of dog and type of pet to try and limit the damage for the landlord,” he said.
