The Housing Bill brings important changes to the private rented sector that will affect how landlords manage and plan their properties. For Rettie landlords, understanding what these changes mean in practice is essential.
This series will provide clear guidance on the key proposals in the Housing Bill, explaining how they may impact rental income, property management, and long-term investment decisions, helping you prepare with confidence. This blog will focus on allowing pets and property alterations.
Once the new housing bill is enforced, landlords will not be allowed to “unreasonably refuse” to allow tenants to keep pets. There cannot be a blanket ‘No-Pet’ policy at any rental property.
Landlords will not be allowed to refuse to permit a tenant to make reasonable alterations to their property, if this is at the tenants’ expense.
As a growing proportion of the population rely on rental properties as their long-term homes, not being allowed to keep a pet places an unfair restriction on them and is arguably denying them their right to have a pet.
Also, if a tenant plans to live in a rental property for many years to come, it only seems fair they can alter it cosmetically, at their expense, to suit their own tastes.
The bill has been changed predominantly for the benefit of long-term, or “forever renters”, who it is felt should have the right to keep a pet and live in a home which is personalised to suit their taste.
This will not be clear until there have been some test-cases brought to tribunal.
Possible reasons to deny a pet would be if the animal type, or number of animals, is deemed entirely inappropriate for the property size or type, or very likely to cause distress to neighbours.
Another example could be dogs that are deemed dangerous to farm animals in rural properties surrounded by agricultural land.
Yes, the landlord can insist that the tenant ‘tops up’ their deposit, up to the maximum permissible amount, being 2x the monthly rent, if the animal poses a genuine risk of causing damage to a property. Asking for a deposit of 2 months rent to keep a goldfish, would almost certainly be deemed unreasonable.
The most likely requests would be to change décor or add things like shelving. Landlords would not be obliged to agree to permanent, irreversible alterations, and any works would have to be done to agreed standards.
Yes, the landlord can insist on this, however some landlords may feel the alterations will be beneficial to the property for future occupants, so may be happy to accept alterations which are mutually beneficial, providing they are done to appropriate standards.
As with all the recent changes to the housing bill, this has been granted Royal Ascent, but is not yet enforceable at the time this article was written (February 2026). We expect it to become an enforceable law sometime during 2026 & 2027.
Recent research from surveyor firm Rebuild Cost Assessment underlined a concerning issue in the UK's property insurance landscape. It highlighted that a significant number of property insurance policyholders (approximately 68% for residential properties) may be at risk of ‘underinsurance’.