To want to complain and fight my estate agents/landlord?

[erised]

My husband and I have just secured a house to rent with Romans. We've paid a holding deposit and signed paperwork, even given notice on our current place. In the listing for the house it says 'Cats allowed' and this was confirmed multiple times by the person putting through our paperwork. I received a call today from the estate agents saying that there was a mix up and the landlord has said that we are not allowed our cats and it's either them or the house. Is there anything I can do to fight this? I'm so upset, this was our dream house and I'm also pregnant. Am I overreacting?

@Dontdisturbmenow we have 2 adult Sphynx cats. So no fur or risk of fleas. Also we'll behaved and don't scratch up carpets.

Get the estate agent to sort you another rental?
As nice and discount fees due to their mistake

As a tenant, I hid my cat whenever the Landlord or agents came round to see the house. She did cause damage to the carpet but we crawled around snipping loose threads with mail scissors and it looked fine when we left (and full deposit restored).

As a Landlord now, I'd happily allow pets but probably maximum 1 dog/2 cats as it's not a huge house.

OP - I'd be checking the signed paperwork thoroughly to see if there's any wiggle room. Whilst you can offer more rent to cover damage, this wouldn't prevent them from deducting damage caused by the pets from your deposit. However, it might sway the decision in your favour

Your best chance then is to speak to landlord directly, show pictures although that won't help with scratches, and you saying they don't scratch is only going by your promises knowing you are quite desperate.

Maybe offer to meet you and cats.

You don't have to allow inspections though. So just take the cats with you.

Also, if you haven't signed a tenancy agreement, what paperwork have you signed?

I am a landlord and my tenants had cats. It was a house with tiled floors - no carpets, no curtains, unfurnished (not in the UK). I have had the floor tiles removed, the kitchen removed (for renovation) and I can STILL smell cat piss. The cats were not indoor cats, but somehow the smell has seeped into the very fabric of the house. I will never allow cats in any of my properties again.

With regard to your issue, the property belongs to the landlord and, with respect, it is their decision whether to allow pets or not. It is irrelevant whose fault it is - clearly you cannot move into the property if the landlord does not allow your cat.

I know a lot of people wont agree with this (especially if there are landlords on here) I have two cats and when I moved into my house a few yrs ago they asked if I had any pets and I did i'd have to pay the usual month rent up front but double the bond to cover any damages. I couldn't afford an extra £700 on top of what I was already paying. So I lied and said I had no pets. The good thing with cats is that u can hide them in a way. When I had a letter saying about a property inspection on a certain date I hid the cats toys/scratching posts under my stairs, put their food bowls out the garden and made sure I put the cats out before they came. Simple. But one day I had a problem and the landlord turned up unexpected to fix the problem and both my cats were sprawled out on the floor with toys clearly in sight of my landlord. He made a comment about me not having pets. I replied that I don't, they are a neighbours cat that I mistakenly fed chicken too once and they keep coming back (which is what cats do) then I said because they are friendly and obviously like coming to my house and my kids like them that I bought a few toys for when they pop by so they wont scratch the carpets etc. He believed me. Like I said cats u can get away with because feeding a cat will make it come back and tbh a lot of cats will sleep wherever they want, whether it's their own house or not. A dog would be harder to get away with.
I know I lied but it's worked out fine for us.

Landlord here, please don't lie and take them anyway. We don't allow pets, ours is a flat and it's due to the leasehold. But even if it wasn't we wouldn't as both me and my partner have cat allergies. We'd know as soon as an inspection was carried out and evict as soon as the fixed term ended to allow us to do so easily.

However, do complain to the agent. They should be moving heaven and earth to find you something suitable in an attempt to rectify their mistake.

To all the people saying hide your cats during inspections, non cat people (generally) can smell cats. As a landlord I never allow cats - cat urine (as some cats are not well trained) seeps into carpets, curtains and floorboards and the smell remains, even why people have “cleaned”. This means it’s more expensive to properly clean/decorate before I can let to the next tenants. I have allowed a long term tenant a dog, however they are an executive couple who had been living there two years and keep the home immaculate (and the dog is super cute) and so far no damage. But cats or other pets - absolutely no.

This is the biggest load of shit I've ever read.. Dogs can smell worse than cats, and last time I checked, their wee if left to dirty can have the same effect, my MIL had to pull up all laminate in a bedroom as tenants left a dog to wee in there.

I have had a dog and he had far more of a doggy stink to him than my cat. Also dogs can do more damage if chewing wood and can also wee everywhere if not trained. Our dog dug up our garden, and what about poo if tenants leave it? When we rented the estate agent told us they generally put up no pets because of dogs, and the amount of destruction and noise they've had from dogs. Just because it's "super cute" doesn't mean it won't cause damage, just crap.

Op I don't think there's a lot you can do sadly unless you rehome your cats. The hardest time we had was with our dog, we never had issue renting with a cat previously. It's all changed rental wise, mil is having a hard time trying to rent out and nothing is available so getting ridiculous offers.

I definitely wouldn't take the cats regardless as I wouldn't risk being evicted with a baby.

I am so sorry about this. It's true LL used to be able to charge a separate amount for pets to cover any possible future damage and now they can't due to Tenant Fee Ban in force last year. However they are legally allowed to charge a slightly higher rent for similar purpose.
I am more inclined to think it is the Agent's fault for making the mistakes - afterall they would want the highest rent possible to maximise their (undeserved perhaps) fees.
If you want to try one last thing and not just look for another place, ask to speak to the LL directly and explain what kind of cats they are, how you look after them etc. Also agree they can inspect more frequently which is again something that's allowed and is a reasonable measure. If the Agents are managing the property then of course they wouldn't want any extra work.

Believe me LLs would rather have long term, stable, responsible tenants paying rent on time than not.
If the agents refuse then you have your final answer or if they say the LL does not want to speak to you then again, best to accept it. Sorry.

YANBU to be thoroughly pissed off but the EA made a mistake and the LL doesn’t allow cats so what can you fight?

I’d put the pressure on the EA to find you a suitable property ASAP. Ask to be shown properties before they go on the market. Unfortunately having pets does restrict your choices by quite a large amount.

if you lie, don't come back here blubbering about any breach of contract.

the 'allowing pets' law is MN fantasy. What IS now law is capped deposits and restricted fees, so landlords cannot charge a higher deposit nor take a higher fee for pet damage. Result; landlords don't want pets. Congratulations, Shelter on another campaign result.

offer a higher rent if you are that keen. And your pregnancy is not relevant to any of this.

@mencken who says I'm going to lie about it? If you read through the thread you'll see I've already said I'm not willing to lie and risk a house being taken from my family.

Anyway I sent an email explaining my cats and that we would be willing to pay extra rent, cleaning fees etc and they've basically made it obvious that they are not going to actually talk to the landlord about this and flat out refused. They won't let us have any contact with the landlord, all has to be done through them (landlord lives over seas). I'm just going to call it quits. They have 3 weeks to find somewhere for us otherwise we will have to stay put in our 1 bed flat for another year.

Have you a copy of the listing where is says cats allowed?

Sometimes you can find it in your computer’s internet chache.

If so present it to the Agent and Landlord.

You may be able to use this to get your fees back if nothing else.

Ah sorry about that. I'm afraid that with overseas LLs, the EA pretty much control everything without authority sometimes.
Best of luck with finding a new place, it may even be better.

I did a land registry search on my old rental to make sure the landlord was the landlord.
Is it possible to do that with an over seas owner?

My last one the agents said we could have the cat but never asked the owner. Luckily he was ok with it. it was only when I popped by to show someone the house and the landlord was there did he get asked - well eventually after I realised they hadn’t.

I dont think legally we can ban pets but most Teanancy Agreements have a statement saying no pets without the landlords permission (which cannot reasonably be refused) All of these words are ambiguous, we used to take a small extra deposit linked to a esponsible pet agreemnt, but to be honest it was useless ans many tenants took no notice of it. One house was damamged £3000 by dogs, door frames, carpets, floor boards. not lie about it. Find a property that will accept cats (some will only say One) You will already have been credit checked so could take only days. You have no legal right before you have read, agreed and signed the tenancy agreement. Walk away from this house and find another

@Becky82
The most important thing for me as a landlord is having good relations with my tenants which includes trust. You would no longer have my trust.

FFS, just pointing out what could happen if you followed the advice of the sillybitch 'just lie' contingent on here. Bet they'd be the first to blubber if someone ripped them off.

once tenancy starts you are legally entitled to landlord contact details, but with agents like this, I agree don't bother. Plenty more places to rent, although pets will make it harder due to the new tenancy fees law. That's Shelter's fault.

@Fidgety31 very risky and could result in us getting thrown out due to breach of tenancy

You wouldn't be thrown out due to 'breach of tenancy'. To do that they would have to use the discretionary grounds of a Section 8 notice. Not only does this take usually months to get a court date, it would almost certainly be thrown out. Discretionary grounds are hard to prove and hard to obtain an eviction ruling on. Furthermore LLs and agents are now legally required to allow pets unless there are compelling reasons not to, so they would almost certainly lose any such court case.

What they can do however is serve a Section 21 notice at the end of the initial 6 or 12 month term. So I would advise you to move in, try to hide the cat, and if they find out then the worst they can do is give you two months notice to coincide with the end of the initial term. But probably, if you are good tenants in every other way, and there is no damage, they won't do that.

both LL zone & RLA seem to suggest that you can use section 8 to get Tenant who has broken contract of no pets with having a pet. (No experience disclaimer but there are several discussions on these boards

Romans are absolute cunts

Yes I'd like a link too as I've never heard of this before