Renting with a cat in England: what landlords ask, and how to answer

Most guides to renting with a pet are written about dogs, because dogs are where the arguments are. Cats are different. They are quieter, they need no walking, and a landlord’s concerns about them are narrower and easier to answer. They still get refused, usually because the request did not answer the concern the landlord actually had.

England only, as with everything on this site about the Renters’ Rights Act.

The right is the same

Since 1 May 2026 an assured tenant in England can formally request consent to keep a pet, the landlord must give or refuse consent in writing within 28 days, and consent must not be unreasonably refused. Nothing in the Act treats a cat differently from a dog. The guide to how the right works is here.

What does differ is what a reasonable landlord is likely to be thinking about.

The five concerns behind a cat refusal

1. Scratching. Furniture, carpets, door frames. This is the concern behind most cat refusals, and it is the easiest to answer with specifics: a scratching post already in use, claws kept trimmed, and a plain sentence about the state of your current furniture.

2. Litter and smell. A landlord picturing a litter tray is picturing the worst one they have encountered. Say where the tray lives, how often it is cleaned, and that the flat will be handed back without any trace of it.

3. Indoor or outdoor. An indoor cat raises no questions about the garden, the road or the neighbours’ gardens. An outdoor cat raises all three, and a landlord may reasonably ask how the cat gets out, because a cat flap is an alteration to their door and needs their consent separately.

4. Fleas. Treatment kept up to date, stated as a fact with the product named if you like, answers this in one line.

5. Allergies of the next tenant. A landlord letting a shared house, or thinking about the tenant after you, is entitled to think about this. An offer to have the property professionally cleaned at the end of the tenancy lands directly on it.

What the law already requires of you

Since 10 June 2024, cats in England must be microchipped by the time they are 20 weeks old, and the details must be kept up to date. Say that your cat is chipped and the record is current. It is a legal requirement, and a landlord will read it as one more sign of a person who does things properly.

Neutering is not required by law, but it is the first thing a landlord asks about an outdoor cat, and for good reason.

What a landlord cannot ask for

They cannot require pet insurance, and they cannot take a larger deposit. The insurance clause was removed from the Bill before it passed, and deposits were already capped with no pet exception. If you already hold cat insurance, mention it as a fact; do not offer it as a term. Here is why the distinction matters.

The request, for a cat

The free template works unchanged. Where it says [TWO OR THREE SENTENCES ABOUT THEM], write about the five concerns above, in that order, and you will have answered the landlord’s questions before they thought to ask them. A Pet CV does the same with headings, and a letting agent will file it.

Keep the animal out of the property until consent arrives in writing. A missed deadline is grounds to complain; it is not permission. What happens after you send the request is here.

Writing it yourself

The template above is free, and a Pet CV for your cat goes with it. For a cat in particular, the difference between yes and no is usually the two sentences about scratching, and you can write those yourself.