Pet clause in a lease: consent, conditions and refusals

Sample clause

a residential tenancy in New South Wales between Juniper Lane Properties, a fictional landlord in Wollongong, and a tenant who applied to keep a small dog

10. Pets 10.1 The Landlord consents to the Tenant keeping one dog, a desexed miniature poodle named Biscuit, at the Premises, as recorded on the pet application form dated 3 August 2026. 10.2 The Tenant must keep the dog registered and microchipped as required by law, and must comply with any council rules and strata bylaws that apply to it. 10.3 Because the dog will live indoors, the Tenant must have the carpets professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy. 10.4 The Tenant is responsible for any damage the dog causes beyond fair wear and tear and must not allow it to cause a nuisance to neighbours. 10.5 This consent applies only to the dog described in clause 10.1. The Tenant must apply using the pet application form before keeping any other animal, other than an assistance animal.

Sample wording, not legal advice.

Variants

What to negotiate

• Conditions that are reasonable

  NSW Fair Trading guidance accepts conditions such as professional carpet cleaning at the end of the tenancy where the animal lives indoors, and fumigation where it is a mammal living indoors. A landlord cannot make consent conditional on a higher bond or rent, or on the tenant taking out insurance, so conditions should match the animal and the property.

• Describing the animal

  Consent tied to one named animal gives the landlord certainty but means a new application for any replacement pet. Tenants may ask for consent to cover a type and size of animal, such as one small dog, so that a later replacement does not need fresh approval. Landlords can accept that with a cap on the number of animals.

The risk of leaving it out

Without a pet clause the tenant still needs consent in New South Wales, but there is no written record in the agreement of which animal was approved, what conditions were agreed or who pays for cleaning at the end. That gap usually surfaces in a bond dispute, when the landlord claims for damage the tenant says was never a condition of consent.

When a New South Wales landlord can refuse

Since 19 May 2025 a landlord can refuse a pet only for specific reasons, which include: the pet would mean an unreasonable number of animals, a reason that cannot apply to four or fewer; the fencing or open space is not appropriate for the animal; the animal cannot be kept humanely at the property; the animal is highly likely to cause damage costing more than the bond; keeping it would break another law, such as council limits; or the tenant would not agree to reasonable conditions. The landlord must respond on the form within 21 days, or the pet is approved without conditions.

How Victoria compares

Victoria also requires consent, but the burden runs the other way. A renter asks using the approved form, the rental provider must not unreasonably refuse, and consent is taken to be given unless the rental provider applies to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal within 14 days after receiving the request. The Tribunal then decides whether refusal is reasonable, having regard to matters such as the type of pet and whether refusal is permitted under another law. In both states assistance animals are treated differently from pets.

Where it sits in a generated document

A generated tenancy document places the pet terms in a numbered clause among the additional terms, so the named animal and the conditions can be matched against the pet application form. The generated text does not cite the tenancy legislation, so a draft is checked against the state regulator's current guidance before it is used.

Documents that carry this clause

Residential lease agreement template for a New South Wales fixed termA residential tenancy is the one agreement where most of the terms are set by statute rather than by the parties, so the useful part of a template is the additional terms and the numbers. This one is a 12 month New South Wales fixed term at $560 a week, with the bond, the entry notice periods and the break fee written out exactly as the Act sets them.Room rental agreement template for one room in a shared homeRenting a room is not the same as renting a house, and most templates copy a residential lease and hope. This one is written for one room with shared kitchen and bathroom, prices the bills split, lists the rules that matter, and says plainly that the occupant is a boarder or lodger and what that changes.Sublease agreement template with the head lease consent recordedSubletting a room goes wrong in two places: the landlord never consented, and nobody wrote down what the occupant is actually renting. This agreement fixes the consent on the first page with a date and an email, then sets out the room, the shared areas and who keeps each one in order.

Questions people ask