Allowing pets in your rental property comes with distinct pros and cons. For instance, being pet-friendly opens your rental to a larger tenant pool. However, you also put your property at risk of pet damage and noise complaints. So, what do you do? If you plan to accept pets in your rentals, conducting a comprehensive pet screening process is essential to help ensure they’re a good fit for the property and community. Want to know more about how pet screening works? Continue reading to find out.
What Is Pet Screening in Rentals?
In our experience in San Antonio TX property management, we’ve had our fair share of pet screening cases. Pet screening is essentially a background check on the tenant’s pet to see if they’re a good fit for your rental property. And believe it or not, pet screening can be a tedious process!
In essence, pet screening is the same as the tenant screening process, where you want to make sure that the tenant/pet doesn’t have any red flags that can pose a danger to you and your rental property business. The goal of pet screening is for you to gain insight into the pet’s personality, health, and behavior to evaluate if they fit your tenancy standards and requirements.
Why Landlords Should Use Pet Screening
While pet screening is not a legal requirement, landlords can greatly benefit from adopting this screening process. Why? Because it can help you minimize the risks associated with allowing pets in your rental property. Let’s dig a little deeper.
As we mentioned earlier, being a pet-friendly rental can be a highly lucrative business decision. With roughly 94 million pet households in the country, allowing pets in your rental opens your business to more renters. On top of that, you can generally charge more in the form of pet rent for pet-friendly rentals and experience fewer vacancies.
However, it also comes with some risks, such as property damage, noise complaints, and health hazards. Pet screening aims to help minimize these potential issues. But how?
Pet screening allows you to know more about the pet that will be living in your rental property. You’ll learn about how the pet behaves, if they are properly vaccinated, as well as gauge their relationship with their owner. Spotting red flags early is just one way for you to protect your property from damage.
Another benefit of pet screening is that you’ll be able to evaluate whether or not the pet will be a potential danger to other residents. For example, an aggressive pet can pose a danger to residents, guests, and other pets in the community. Similarly, a dog that excessively barks can be a disturbance to neighboring units.
What to Evaluate During Pet Screening
As a landlord in Texas, you have full liberty regarding the pet policy you want to put in place in your rental property. However, keep in mind that you can’t discriminate against service animals in accordance with Fair Housing Laws. So, how do you conduct your pet screening process effectively?
When you have a tenant who wants to bring a pet into your rental property, the first step that you need to take is to explain your pet screening process and pet policy.
This should be applied to all applicants with a pet and outline the various rules and guidelines regarding pet ownership in your rental, including fees such as a pet security deposit or pet rent.
The policy also indicates lease terms such as the types and number of pets allowed, acceptable noise, and other restrictions.
If they decide to push through, the next step in the screening process is that the tenant submits a completed application form for their pets. This includes key details such as the type of pet they have, breed, weight, size, age, vaccination records, behavioral history, and relevant training courses.
At this stage, some pets may not pass the screening based on the potential breed restrictions set in place type, weight, size, or vaccination history.
But if the pet passes the initial screening requirements, the next step is to conduct a background check through an in-person interview. Here, the goal is to evaluate the behavior and temperament of the pet, making sure that they don’t pose any danger.
You can also ask the tenant for references from their veterinarian, friends, and even previous landlords who have spent more time with the pet to have a better understanding of their personality, behavior, and tendencies. From here, you can make an informed decision whether to accept the tenant and their pet in your rental.
Legal Considerations of Pet Screening
While Texas doesn’t have any specific pet laws for rental properties, you still have to be mindful of other regulations, especially when it comes to service animals and emotional support animals (ESA).
But first, let’s distinguish the two from each other. Service animals are those specifically trained to aid people with disabilities in their day-to-day activities. On the other hand, emotional support animals, or ESAs, are animals that provide comfort and companionship to people with a mental or psychiatric disability.
According to the Fair Housing Act, landlords cannot deny a tenant’s application because they have a service animal with them. More than that, they must provide reasonable accommodation so that the tenant can live in the property just like any other residents. The only exception to the tenant’s request for reasonable accommodation is:
- If the pet brings an undue financial or administrative burden to you
- You need to make fundamental alterations to your rental property business to accommodate the service animal
- The service animal would cause significant and unavoidable property damage
- And the animal is deemed dangerous
Other than the Fair Housing Act, landlords also need to comply with other federal laws regarding service animals, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. These state that facilities cannot discriminate against individuals with disabilities and must take steps to make properties fair and accessible to all.
Pet Screening Software and Costs for Landlords
Pet screening can be a tedious process. Fortunately, there is an array of digital platforms that can streamline and simplify how you screen your tenants’ pets.
When choosing a pet screening software, look for key features such as online pet profiles, vaccination, support animal verification, and Fair Housing Act compliance. It also helps if you can integrate the pet screening software with other property management platforms.
The best thing? You can pass the cost of the pet screening software to the tenant. On average, these cost just around $15 to $35, depending on the features included in the subscription.
How Bay Property Management Can Help
Pet screening is essential if you want to accept pets into your rental property. When you do, it’s important that you understand how you should conduct a pet screening legally and effectively. From understanding what the Fair Housing Act says about service animals, to evaluating pets to gauge their compatibility.
If you need help with your tenant and pet screening process, working with an experienced rental management company, like BMG. We at Bay Property Management Group offer a wide array of services, including tenant screening. With our extensive rental property experience, we have established a screening process that is fair, transparent, and compliant.