Working for a chap and his wife last week, they have a cat and a parot in their flat, they had just been sent a letter by the leaseholder they need to remove both pets asap, as it was against the lease, and they own the flat and didnt know of those rules.

any advice

Rules about pets are usually crystal clear in tenancy contracts.. Have they read thiers?

a parrot in a flat is asking for trouble. They are bloody noisy!

Move?

Wait a minute. They own the flat and someone is telling them they can’t have pets?

That’s a very good point.

Also – how did they know? Is “what pets?” a viable gambit?

Yeh im confused too..

No pets clause is standard in asts. However its the freeholder who says no pets usually – apparently its been to court and it can’t be enforced, meaning owner not tenant.

My flatemate has bunnies, they’re cute. They nibble everything and crap on the carpet.

They own the flat and someone is telling them they can’t have pets?

With a flat its part of a shared building fabric. So when you “own” a flat what you really have is a long lease (that gives you a right of occupation so long it is at a practical level “ownership”) of your part of that bigger building.

The land, shared bits of the building and some of the wider fabric are usually owned by a third party landlord or a management company in which some or all of the individual flat “owners” may have an interest. That means your lease/ownership is subject to terms that the landlord/management company have included.

That’s south of the wall anyway. Scottish property law is often technically different in lots of ways but I imagine not entirely different.

You English are funny – when are you going to rise up and throw off your feudal oppressors?

And get some decent access laws while you’re at it.

Rabbits are exempt from rules banning pets. Allotments act, 1952.

Last place we were in was a flat (owned leasehold by the OH).

We had a letter from the management company acting on behalf of the freeholder stating that pets should be removed from all properties in the development immediately

Completely ignored it as wholly unenforceable, besides everyone in the other flats nearby f****g loved our cat. (all the other cat owners in the development ignored it as well)

Appreciate the people in question are the tenants but the landlord (leaseholder) can ignore the rule, assuming nothing is written into the leasehold. Whether they choose to or not is another matter.

I’ve found flats the only option, if I’ve shown the cat once how to clip in and out I’ve shown her a thousand times. She just looks at me with thinly disguised contempt.

Wait a minute. They own the flat and someone is telling them they can’t have pets?

Pretty standard for leasehold flats and even some shared freehold properties (like a conversion of a large house)
No pets allowed in my small block which doesn’t bother me as I wouldn’t want a yappy dog barking. A parrot/cat/goldfish wouldn’t bother me though but rules is rules.

You don’t ever really own the flat if it’s leasehold. Even after you’ve paid off the mortgage. A very good reason to get a house if you can

Personally unless it was a ground floor flat with easy access for the cat to go in and out, I wouldn’t have a cat anyway – pretty unpleasant for the cat to be stuck indoors all day!

Just ignore the letter, what are they going to do to enforce it?

Teach the parrot to rest then pretend it’s died.

Given that if they own the flat they have every right to just refuse entry to any busy bodies, how can anyone prove they have any animals? Just Say the loud sqwaking noise is a tape of exotic jungle sounds for relaxation…

then tell em to f off..

Rabbits are exempt from rules banning pets. Allotments act, 1952

Only if you live on an allotment 🙂

My pet prefers clipless.

My pet prefers clipless

I only came here to make a similar joke…
Flounce initiated

@rob
Nope. The wording in the Allotments Act specifically allows you to keep rabbits and chickens on ANY land you rent, including within a flat.

I live on the 16th floor of a huge apartment block in downtown Hong Kong. Amazingly, pets are not banned. In fact, my next-door neighbours have 5 tiny, insane dogs. I’m not sure they ever go out. I know they’re there because (a) they smell and (b) every time one of the lifts stops on our floor, they hurl themselves en masse against their front door, screaming blue bloody murder in heir tiny, stupid miniature dog voices.

(I only know there are 5 of them because the neighbours’ servant told me. I’d charitably assumed it wasn’t such a ridiculous number.)

Pointless anecdote… 🙂

Personally unless it was a ground floor flat with easy access for the cat to go in and out, I wouldn’t have a cat anyway – pretty unpleasant for the cat to be stuck indoors all day!

Cats are perfectly happy being house cats so long as they don’t know any different. You can’t – well, shouldn’t – really try and turn a free-range cat into an indoor one or vice versa.

but I imagine not entirely different.

Well, entirely different in so much as I can have a parrot in a flat I own without someone telling me otherwise.