Flat Lettings with Dogs

I am shocked how impossible it has been for me to find a flat that allows small dogs in London. I see them all round the streets but apparently people aren't pet friendly when it comes to rentals.

Anybody else bring their dog over and have advice for getting landlords to agree to them?

A lot of folks have successfully done it, but it usually takes at least a little bit (if not a lot!) of extra work.  We brought our 2 cats and have successfully rented 2 flats in London.  We looked for flats without carpet, so hardwood, laminate or tile floors only.  We looked for sparsely furnished apartments, so there was a low risk of a landlord envisioning ruined upholstery, we had a "pet reference" from our previous landlord in the US and, for the first apartment, we offered an additional 2 weeks of deposit. 

Our current place didn't really care at all. 

We did run into a decent number of places that were just flat out "no pets" due to overarching building policy -- didn't even get to the point of dealing with an individual landlord.  We were really open about our cats, so I was always annoyed with agents who showed us places with no-pet policies. 

Good luck!

I'm not located in London but I used to have a dog and moving was an issue at first. What worked for us was offering a much higher deposit. I'm not sure if that will help you but once we started to offer an extra 300/400 quid, landlords and agencies didn't seem to mind our dog anymore.

Thanks all. I'll have to go with the larger deposit tactic and see if that helps improve some perceptions of a pet. Fingers crossed as I only have 4 weeks left in my temp housing.

I haven't had to pay a higher deposit, though I have been willing to offer one. I've found that the places that don't mind haven't needed more of a deposit, but the ones that do mind aren't swayed by it. YMMV, of course.

We have dogs and rent our property and we had major issues getting landlords to agree.  We found we had to pay a higher deposit and promise to only keep them on hard floor areas and if there was carpet down, we had to have it professionally cleaned every 3 months.

We now always offer this (extra deposit, £50 extra on the monthly rent and promise to have carpets cleaned quarterly) and we've had no problems since!  Money talks!

Being landlords ourselves I don't see the issue.  We rent our place out and welcome all animals as it's a family home.  We also have 5 kids and I can tell you, the kids make more mess than my pooches do! 

Good luck looking.

Mrs D Brose