Until 1 May 2026, a landlord in England could turn down a tenant's request to keep a pet for almost any reason, or none at all. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 changes that position: once it is in force, a tenant can ask to keep a pet, and the landlord needs a proper reason to refuse.

What a reasonable refusal looks like

The change does not turn every request into an automatic yes. A landlord can still say no where there's a genuine reason connected to the property or the tenancy, such as a superior lease that bans pets outright. What the Act removes is the option to refuse simply out of preference, without putting a reason to the tenant.

Where the right applies

This right sits in English law. A tenant renting in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland is working under separate legislation, and the position for them is not the same as it is in England.

If you've asked to keep a pet and been turned down, or a landlord has attached a condition to saying yes, the tool that checks what a landlord can require works through the position for the nation you rent in.

A Bill looks different by the time it finishes its passage through Parliament than it did when it was first introduced. Clauses get amended, narrowed or dropped along the way, and the Renters' Rights Act went through several drafts before it received Royal Assent. Early reporting and sector commentary on pet insurance described a version of the Act that was still being debated, and parts of what was described never made it into the final text.

The same caution applies to guidance. Anything written before Royal Assent was working from a draft that could still change, and some of it did. What a landlord can and cannot ask of a tenant regarding pet insurance is set by the section as enacted.

How to tell which you are reading

Anything stating a legal position on this should name the Act, give the section number, and say when the text was read. If a claim about pet insurance doesn't carry those three things, it's worth treating as commentary. The Can my landlord make me buy this? tool works from the section text directly rather than a paraphrase of it, though like any summary of a changing area of law it can be wrong or out of date, so the underlying section is worth checking yourself if a lot rests on the answer.

When a landlord or agent mentions pet insurance, they can mean one of two different things, and it helps to know which one you're being offered before you agree to anything.

Cover for damage your pet causes to the landlord's property

This is cover against the things a pet can do to a rented home: a clawed door, a stained carpet, a chewed skirting board. It sits alongside the deposit rather than replacing it, and it works in roughly the same way as tenant's liability cover does for accidental damage you cause yourself — it pays out (up to whatever limit the policy sets) toward putting the landlord's property back to the condition it was in, and you'd usually still face an excess before it pays anything.

Some landlords ask for this specifically because they're worried about wear a standard deposit might not stretch to cover. It's a property policy. It has nothing to do with the animal's health.

Cover for the pet's own veterinary costs

Pet insurance in the more familiar sense covers the animal itself: vet bills if it falls ill or is injured, and sometimes third-party costs if it injures someone or damages someone else's property away from home. This is cover you'd typically hold for your own reasons, whether or not you rent, and it does nothing for the landlord's carpets or fixtures.

A landlord who tells you that you need pet insurance before keeping a pet could mean either of these, or both. Worth asking which, because the answer changes what you're actually being asked to pay for and what it would protect if something went wrong.

If you want to check what your landlord is actually entitled to require, the tool at Can my landlord make me buy this? routes by nation and by the specific product you've been asked to take.