Landlords will not be allowed to insist tenants take out pet insurance damage under the Renters’ Rights Bill because the insurance industry has told Ministers that it will not be ready to offer it ‘at scale’.
The draft legislation, which is going through parliament at the moment and is due to become law later this year, will force landlords to accept tenants with pets unless they have ‘good reason’, guidance for which is due to published after the Bill goes live.
But the Government had originally drafted it to allow landlords to insist tenants take out pet damage insurance, but this has now been removed.
Yesterday Lords’ housing minister Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (main image) revealed that, following talks with the Association of British Insurers, it had become clear that pet damage insurance ‘at scale’ cannot not be developed fast enough.
Baroness Taylor (main image) said that “I have listened carefully and recognise that while the insurance industry does respond to public policy there is a risk that relevant insurance does not come on to the market sufficiently following implementation of the Bill.
“To avoid a situation where landlords could veto a tenant’s reasonable request to keep a pet we are withdrawing the pet insurance provisions from the Bill.”
The baroness went on to say that although the insurance industry will develop products at a later date, she accepted that this will not happen at the scale necessary, but that this would be kept ‘under review’.
Baroness Taylor said the Government is satisfied that five weeks’ rent is a sufficient level of deposit to cover pet damage, and not the eight weeks’ rent that several Lords had suggested during the debate as is the case in Scotland, but again would keep this under review too.
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