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We were having trouble finding a place for our two dogs so offered a "dog bond" which was $500 on top of our normal bond in case the dogs did any damage to the property. Once we did that, we were approved straight away at a house that originally stated no pets. Obviously we still looked after the place and when we left there were no problems and we got the whole bond back.
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
I think this concept is relatively new to Victoria (I may be wrong) - lots of my interstate friends told me about the 'dog bond' and no RE or landlord I've ever come across seem to know wtf I was talking about!
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Would it help if you got 'references' for the cats? If you have a couple of people, say your vet and someone else, who can vouch for the cats and write a short letter saying they are well looked after, house trained etc. I think it's surprising how many rentals are "no pets allowed" considering how many families in Australia have pets!
we have a dog and struggled to get our landlord to allow us to get him. our 'pet clause' in our lease says he is not allowed inside, but before DD came along he was inside regularly, just didn't live inside, and the real estate don't know any different.
DF really wants to get a cat but I don't think we can convince the landlord/real estate to allow us to have one. I think it's dumb...if you're going to look after their property you will do it regardless of if you have a pet or not, people who are going to trash a place will do it whether or not they have a pet...it's not the pet it's their owner!
good luck, I hope you find somewhere you will be allowed to have the cats! Or sneak them in! You can always drop them off at a boarding kennel or a friend's place for the day when you have an inspection.
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I'm in Vic and the RE we dealt with had never heard of it either, but put it to the owners and they were ok with it. I saw it on one of those property shows 5+ years ago.
Once the owners agreed, they just tacked it on to the end of the lease and added the amount to our normal bond.
2013 BellyBelly RAK Recipient.
Yep, one place we rented we hid our kitty. She's an outside cat anyway, we don't let her come inside, so at inspections we just hide the evidence, and if she was in sight during the inspection (which only happened once LOL!) I just said oh, thats a neighbours cat, silly thing keeps coming into our yard. Isn't she so friendly, you can pat her and everything ... ... ...
Ooops.
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Yes, I had a RE agent drop around once and quickly chucked dogs and stuff into our back bedroom. (He shouldn't have been there without making an appointment but he was w-e-i-r-d in a 'way too interested in what my tenant is up to' kinda way.) I just looked embarrassed and said there was no way I could let him into the bedroom, I hadn't tidied up. I have no idea whether that's what sparked his ongoing obsession with coming around to see me (what on earth did he think was in the bedroom??), until I palmed him off onto DP to deal with!
2013 BellyBelly RAK Recipient.
LOL Jennifer... maybe he thought you had a little garden in your back room
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If only... I think he took my comments as suggestive in another way. In which case he needed to be about 20 years younger and a LOT better looking!
Registered User
Yep, one place we rented we hid our kitty. She's an outside cat anyway, we don't let her come inside, so at inspections we just hide the evidence, and if she was in sight during the inspection (which only happened once LOL!) I just said oh, thats a neighbours cat, silly thing keeps coming into our yard. Isn't she so friendly, you can pat her and everything ... ... ...
Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
I just threw a blanket over the snoozing cat and flipped a boob out for a feed for ds and the RE guy couldn't get out of there quick enough!
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