Should You Allow Pets in Your Contra Costa County Rental Property?

Our clients often ask us if they should allow pets in their rental properties. Our advice is, yes, you should allow tenants with pets in your property. There are a couple of reasons for this.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CONTRA COSTA COUNTY: SCREENING PETS

Allowing pets will increase your pool of renters. Most people today have pets, and those pets are usually cats or dogs. At Stokley Properties, we have a strong screening process for those animals. We require pet bios so we know how the owner takes care of them. We also make sure the previous landlord gives us a good recommendation on those pets. It’s important that they are clean and not likely to disturb the neighbors. It’s also important to make sure the applicants have the pets under their renter’s insurance policy, in case something happens. This protects owners from any liability.

Finally, we do get a higher deposit for the property when tenants have a pet. This will protect you against any potential property damage that the pet may cause.

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT WALNUT CREEK: SERVICE AND SUPPORT ANIMALS

We cannot deny a tenant who is moving in with a service animal or a comfort animal. This is another reason we recommend getting any pet information up front. With a comfort animal or a service animal, we cannot charge any additional deposits, because it’s not considered a pet. The animal still has to obey your rules, and it cannot destroy the property. Owners must clean up after the comfort animal, and it cannot cause disturbances. Those things are still true.

With comfort and support animals, however, you can be dealing with anything; not just dogs and cats. Whatever the animal is, it’s still important to screen them and to make sure that the animal actually qualifies as a service or comfort animal. We don’t want someone to claim they have a comfort animal later, after we have discovered they have a pet that they did not disclose. We do have steps to screen and ensure this doesn’t happen.

Accept pets, and you have a better chance of finding the best tenant for your property. If you have any questions about this, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Stokley Properties.