I thought pet deposits were made illegal under the TFA hence why we were told to start asking for pet rents
It amuses me how so many landlords have poor socialisations and judgements about people as to what represents the best people to look after their properties.
Working professional = trustworthy person who looks after property. Benefit tenant with dog = untrustworthy Vicky Pollard from little Britain who stubs cigarettes on your floor and the dog chews the door.
Ultimately this is why you get many poor tenants landlords, no checks yourself - and youāll get the coked up āworking professionalā who is into loads of alcohol spending and is in debt on their flash car on a personal finance plan, then accidentally burns your place down high on drugs.
Just makes me laugh. You do ask for it.
Just wanted to hone in here and say THANK YOU for allowing a puppy into your home. I hope their humans take good care of your property for all of us. Finding and making a āhomeā with a pet is horrendous.
There are a lot of things in place to maintain good hygiene and keeping your wood, carpets, floors maintained. There are pee mats, crate training, and so many cleaning supplies for particular messes. Dr. Beckmann (stain and odour remover) is favourite I have had to use.
As a landlord you can request an additional Pet Deposit.
As a pet owner I would have nothing at all against this, and if it makes you feel safer as the homeowner, that is a win/win for everyone.
Good Luck!
Youāre pretty out of touch thereā¦thereās no one better qualified than an experienced landlord to be able to judge.
ā¦checking at least 12 months bank statements, secure stable employment, plenty of disposable income, savings, guarantors and instincts has served me very well. 
Painting working individuals as drug taking drunks? mixing up the stereotype there. 
Let us not forget governments own stats:
Risk of UC tenants defaulting on rent: 46%,
Risk of working tenant defaulting on rent: 22%.
Surely someone from an insurance background should understand the significance of that?
2 Likes
But the overall impression is landlords keep saying they have problems
The problem is your stereotypes and stereotypes are just that and my ones were illustrative of a point.
What you are still not realising is that you use all the circumstances. If you just refuse someone due to being on benefits and a greater risk of defaulting when they have means to live there and you havenāt taken account of all circumstances, then you are making yourself fall foul of equality legislation. And you donāt seem to care about that.
Thatās the difference between someone who sets themselves up in the landlord business to be fair and comply with law and someone who doesnāt.
I think you are dealing with a cluster B
This is what clinically known as a word salad
Weāre not going to get anywhere with this chap / chapess
Itās his way or the highway
Be grateful for small mercies. Heās not in one of your properties.
He makes as much sense as Donald
3 Likes
you canāt understand the basic point that if you show you refuse tenants on one criteria of benefit status alone, which is your point, then if you donāt look at all the other criteria that makes them being able to afford the property, then you WILL BE DISCRIMINATING.
Your prospective tenants will easily realise this. All they have to do is send you an email after one of your properties, say they have income to afford the property at x30 income and then tell you they are on benefits pre viewing. If you refuse them you are basing it on their benefit status. In fact it would be the easiest thing in the world for anyone to do with the way you advertise properties under your moniker.
DOES THIS GET THROUGH TO YOU?
The law doesnāt make it such you have to know of the disability or protected characteristic before you can be deemed to know if you have discriminated against a person or not. This is common sense. If you say no children in an advert and you wonāt know the person applying has children or that they are known to you at that point, if that no children requirement means that you discriminate against them on the basis of a protected characteristic of age, then you are deemed to discriminate whether you know the person or their age at all.
I have benefits tenants , coloured tenants, LGBQT tenants . I have tenants with children and even one with a cat ( although Iām allergic) so Iāve subsequently refused all others because not breathing is one step too far for me
Who am I discriminating against ?
2 Likes
A well know test cases is Lee versus Ashers bakery. The claimant asked for a cake to be made which said support gay marriage. The bakery refused on religious beliefs - i think they were Christianās. They didnāt know the claimantās sexual orientation at that point even though he could have been straight. It is sufficient enough that when a claim is made, if the actions are discriminatory to a group based on a protected characteristic - sexual orientation - and the bakery would know their actions could discriminate to gay people if they adopt their attitude, then if it disadvantages someone and places them in an unfavourable situation on account of this protected characteristic they have (they canāt get a cake) then the bakery have discriminated. So itās a proactive duty not to discriminate. The bakery canāt say that because they didnāt know the person was gay they were not discriminating as that would make a mockery of the legislation. It was sufficient they had a policy which could discriminate and they did so and then defended their actions in court to boot, but the judge found for the claimant.
āColouredā tenants - really in 2025! We are all coloured. I think you mean black, Asian etc.
Iām brown my ethnicity is not British though my nationality
I am coloured and happy to say that
1 Like
Does having blue eyes count?
1 Like
My late fatherās best friend was English born and bred
When we were children he used to say āIām not white Iām pink ā
Everyone is so hung up these days on the minutiae
erā¦ you do know that the claimant lost this case, right? 
5 Likes
Itās a question of ratio decidendi or obiter dicta and the thinking in the original case can still apply.
Tatemono good for you I had forgotten thatā.
more like a case of ratio absenti if you ask meā¦ 
1 Like
The case was predicated at highest appeal court on a factual not technical point of law. That the bakery said they didnāt do it for political reasons. No such right would be afforded here. The original judgement is still good law as far as the equality act goes and tenants rights against landlords who discriminate against benefit tenants or agree that itās ok to say itās right landlords cannot rent with children in the property - ignorant as they are.
So, hereās the Wikipedia entry which states
The court found that the McArthurs did not refuse to make the cake on the grounds of Leeās personal sexual orientation but on the grounds that they disagreed with the message they were being asked to put on it. They ruled there was no direct discrimination. The court also considered associative discrimination, but again ruled that there was no discrimination on the basis of Leeās sexual orientation, as the McArthurs did not refuse service on those personal grounds. They ruled that the McArthurs would have refused to make the cake carrying the message for any customer regardless of the customerās sexual orientation.
If we simply substitute some terms, hereās what we get:
The court found that the Landlord did not refuse to let to S-155 on the grounds of S-155ās disability but on the grounds that the Landlord thought S-155 couldnāt afford the property. They ruled there was no direct discrimination. The court also considered associative discrimination, but again ruled that there was no discrimination on the basis of S-155ās disability, as the Landlord did not refuse the tenancy on those personal grounds. They ruled that the Landlord would have refused to give the tenancy to any applicant who couldnāt afford it regardless of the applicantās disability.
Case closed.
However I sense, like in the original judgement, this may be challenged by the plaintiff.
Who will also lose their appeal to the Court of Human Rights.
4 Likes