Pets & Renting

Hi all,

The OH and I are planning out some details of our future move, and we have some concerns about finding a rental that will allow pets. We plan on bringing our 2 kitties, and my husband would love to find a way to bring our dog. I'm not sure we should bring the dog, as I think we'll be pushing our luck to find a rental that will allows us to have the 2 cats. Not to mention, we have no idea where we will be located as yet, and don't know if there would be some green space nearby for our dog to enjoy. As it is now, she has a huge backyard to run around in, and I'll hate knowing that she'll probably be cooped up in a crate all day while we work and not really have a place to run to her heart's content. Which is why I think it would be more humanitarian to re-home her here.

How common is it to find a place that will allow pets? Would it be easier if we rented direct from an individual, or from an agency? Places we rented in the past typically had a 2 pet max, so are we likely to see that same kind of policy over there, or are most places very strict? Btw, we are planning to move to Scotland..not sure yet if we'll be closer to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

Thanks for any input!
~Jamie

We found it a lot easier to negotiate pets using a private landlord rather than an agency.  Not to say it couldn't be done with an agency because it can and it is, but in our experience it was a lot easier to try and negotiate with the landlord directly.

That said we had no problem finding landlords who would take our cat and (at the time) 3 pet rats.  Two cats or 2 cats and a dog may be a bit more difficult but far from impossible.

Another member was in a similar situation recently - I and others gave him some advice here:

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=55180.0

In short - it's hard, harder than moving without pets and definitely harder than renting in the US with pets (in my experience) but it CAN be done. 

I ditto-ed Meg the last time around, too.  Here (http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=55180.msg787529#msg787529) are my experiences with 2 cats in central London.  It's absolutely do-able, just takes a bit more work and sometimes some creativity.   

If living somewhere somewhat rural is an option you'll have an easier time, I think. We struggled to find a place in suburbia (London suburbs) but when we moved to a semi-rural area where absolutely everyone has pets, it was really easy. We did have to put down an extra deposit for each cat though.

We were just in Edinburgh last month looking at flats, and had no problem going through an agency.  They had to check with each individual landlord as to whether they would allow pets or not but they (agency) were totally willing to do that for us.  In the end, we rented a flat through an agency, and are just paying a slightly larger deposit in order to have our cat there.  Good luck!