Accent Housing Association and Pets

[LilyDaisy3409]

Hello everyone!

I am just jumping on for some advice please.

We own a leasehold flat with Accent Housing Association. We are currently selling it to buy a freehold house.

We are just about to exchange contracts and our buyer has asked whether her small dog is allowed to live in the property. Our neighbours have dogs/cats/other animals, and we didn't think this would be a problem.

We asked Accent and they said that the sale needs to be completed for our buyer to then apply for consent. We argued this, and they sent us a consent form for our buyer to fill in. It was returned to us a couple of days later and had been rejected with the note of 'due to a communal entrance'.

We are planning to appeal this decision. Our buyer has children who are autistic and ofcourse their little worlds would be ripped apart if they were not able to have their small dog with them. We are hoopefully going to appeal the decision, with reference to the Equality Act and the dog being a support (service) animal.

I was wondering if anybody else has been faced with this situation, and whether Accent have been reasonable with appealing or not.

This is the final hurdle - we have all invested so much time, money and dreams in this for it to fall through now. My partner and I haven't slept all week due to the stress of everything.

Thank you.

Definitely appeal. There’s a new law proposed - the Renters Reform Bill - that, if passed, will mean that landlords have to have a good reason to refuse a tenant the right to have a pet. If the dog is a well-trained support dog I can’t see that a communal entrance would be a strong enough reason to refuse. Try Citizens Advice and/or your MP for advice.

The problem is that the dog is more of an emotional support to the children, as part of their routine, communication and wellbeing. The dog has no training or certification of training, however I understand through my research that we do not need to legally provide certification of this.

Thank you for your feedback. We are definitely going to appeal.

This seems to be weirdly common. We moved into a freehold house and then discovered a weird covenant banning us from
owning any pets! My best mate has bought a flat with the same management issue as yours. It’s all very odd.

Two points to emphasise -

1. the HA has set precedents by allowing the other neighbours to have pets.
   Even if the HA hasn’t explicitly allowed this they’re unlikely to risk tenants’ ire by now saying that shouldn’t have happened.

2. the children are autistic and rely on the dog which is (presumably) well-trained and provides emotional support.

There may be other factors which is why I’d contact Citizens Advice.

You're probably dealing with someone at the HA who doesn’t know exactly what they’re doing and it’s easier for them just to say “No.”