Negotiating with Landlord/Owner - Pets in breach of lease - Additiona security depose

[Melaney]

Hello
This is my first time posting so please bear with me.
My husband and I are a professional couple and rent a property which we love. We take greater care of the place and see it as out home. We have been there for nearly a year and a half now. We have never missed or been late with our rent, and really treat the property well.

Unfortunately, we are in breach of our lease, as we ended up looking after a friends dogs while they were going through a divorce, (you can see where this is going), and now they have both decided they don't want them and we have ended up keeping them. We have had them for over 6 months now.

The dogs are not at the property during the day (they go to a doggy day care of sorts). A combination of denial and procrastination has lead us to not notify our property manager of the dogs and he has finally noticed their kennel after 5 inspections. (Our lease allows us one pet already, a Parrot. We also had a rabbit which didn't seem to be a problem. For some reason we sort of told ourselves as he didn't care about the dog kennel he was impliedly consenting to us having a dog - silly I know, he just never clicked until now). The dogs in question are a 4kg shitzu and a 15 kilo spaniel cross.

Anyway so we have been given a 14 day period to remedy the breach (get rid of the dogs).

Now, I haven't spoken to my landlord or the owner of the property yet. I wanted to ask them if they would be amenable to us keeping the dogs if we offered to pay and extra bond as security for any damage that may occur. (The dogs have not damaged the property in any way.). The issue I have is that we have already paid 4 weeks bond on this property. If we were to offer an extra two weeks, can we add it to our tenancy tribunal bond, or is this not possible (I seem to have heard the tenancy tribunal only allows a limit of 4 weeks? Could we lodge a new bond? I plan to run it past the owner of the property to see what they think before I contact our property manager.

Any advice on how to proceed here would be great. My husband is away fro work a lot and we have had break ins in our suburb and the dogs have become part of the family. We will move out if we can't keep them, which would be a real shame for all concerned. I understand, however, that we are in breach of our lease and the landlord is within their rights to have issued us a notice to remedy the breach.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Melany

[TheLibrary]

The fact is you have breached the terms of your lease.

The fact that you take care of the property, always pay your rent on time etc etc is irrelevant, in that the landlord is not obligated to consider this. Offer to pay additional costs etc, but if the answer is no then you have to get rid of the dogs, or go.

The landlord may have had a bad experience with a previous tenant, and now has zero tolerance, and you just have to accept it.

[Melaney]

The fact is you have breached the terms of your lease.

The fact that you take care of the property, always pay your rent on time etc etc is irrelevant, in that the landlord is not obligated to consider this. Offer to pay additional costs etc, but if the answer is no then you have to get rid of the dogs, or go.

The landlord may have had a bad experience with a previous tenant, and now has zero tolerance, and you just have to accept it.

Yes I am aware that we are in breach, and that the landlord is not obligated in any way to consider negotiating over this breach. The additional information was to provide a factual background on the basis that they may be willing to negotiate. In reality, the fact that we have taken care of the property in all other respects is very relevant to whether they would consider negotiation - but of course they are under no obligation to do so. If they are not willing, then we will move with great regret, but also understanding we have a responsibility to uphold our lease contract, and not continue in breach.

My question was in regard to contracting out or over the maximum 4 week bond provision in the Residential Tenancies Act. It seems that this is not an option after further research, but we may offer an increase of rent instead. Thank you for you reply anyway.

[Keys]

My question was in regard to contracting out or over the maximum 4 week bond provision in the Residential Tenancies Act. It seems that this is not an option after further research, but we may offer an increase of rent instead. Thank you for you reply anyway.

Give a further four weeks to a close friend. Have that friend offer the four weeks rent to the landlord by way of guarantee for your dogs behavior. Note this paragraph in the law allows the landlord to accept anything from a guarantor (18A 3b ii).

OR go here to 77 2i and apply to the TT for leave to make the bond 8 weeks worth.


That may give you something to go on.

[Melaney]

This is fantastic - I hadn't considered the possibility of a guarantor.

My husbands employer is close friends with the property manager so this could be a great option. He would be happy to act as a a guarantor, and as he already has a relationship with the property manager there is a level of trust existing there already.

Much appreciated!

[skid]

As a landlord (who has had a bad experience with tenants and dogs) here is what I would consider.
Are the tenants good (an maybe even exceptional)?
Are the dogs ever inside the house (this is a biggie)?
If this happens with dogs ,will it happen with other things?

As you have said -negotiation is the key to this situation.

You really need to sit down with the LL communicate how this situation has occurred(with all due respect ,your friends,obviously have less compassion for the dogs than you) (but thats another story)

What the LL needs to know is that your breach of trust is an exceptional situation and most importantly,the property will not be damaged (you would be surprised how quickly 4 weeks rent(bond)can be eaten up by damage (not to mention the work entailed of actually proving and collecting it-should the LL agree.

What happens if one of you lose their job and cant afford doggie care anymore (there would certainly have to be some strings attached to your agreement)

How big is your section, and are the neighbors ok with the dogs? Are they quiet? Would the neighbors support you if the LL had a word to them?
Are you on good terms with them(if you are, it actually supports your cause as it shows you are good and likeable tenants that are not likely to have problems in that area.

If it was me,despite our policy of no dogs,if you were likeable-diplomatic-provided and sizable guarantee-and didnt keep them inside (even when winter comes and it seems so cold for your new children.) I would probably seriously consider your situation.

But your real job is convincing them that there is going to be no extra work-damage -or any other kind of hassle for them as a LL who is trying to make a living off of this very sizable investment .

Hope this helps

[skid]

I didnt notice that your husband is close friends with the property manager--That is obviously a good thing.
But of course,you now have 2 people to convince-first the PM and he, in turn must get the owners permission.
Your first job is to convince the PM and then hope that he is also a diplomatic communicator (to the owner)

[Maccachic]

Skid - how many shitzu's actually live outside??

[Melaney]

Both dogs sleep outside - they have a kennel, although we do let the smaller dog in the house, which we could of course stop doing if it meant staying where we are.

The house is also not carpeted except in the bedrooms, which might give some reassurance. My husband is also an ex carpet cleaner, I have my own rug doctor shampooer and I shampoo the carpets every six weeks just as a matter of course, dogs or no dogs. (OCD, my husband says).

The section is 1/4 acre and fully fenced. The gardens and lawn are well cared for - we have some beautiful roses which I prune and my husband is a bit of a lawn fanatic.

Our neighbours are great and we get along well. We are currently keeping an eye on our left neighbours house as he is away for work in Christchurch, and my husband regularly does the lawns for the neighbour on the other side.

At our last inspection my property manager told me it was a pleasure to come to our place as it is always so immaculate. Unfortunately I am away in Auckland completing the last part of my Masters at the moment and my husband has been in charge of the house by himself - so perhaps it wasn't as immaculate as usual? I am also 36 weeks pregnant so a move now would really be inconvenient. PM is obviously a bit peeved at the dog situation and to be honest I don't blame him. We really should have dealt with this earlier.

Thank you all for your advice - hopefully we can come to an arrangement. I will update!

[Leftette]

I thought professional carpet cleaners despised the rug doctor machine?

I would consider you, for sure, despite also having a bad dogging experience. Your posts are eloquent and well-written.

[Melaney]

I just got off the phone with the property owner (not the manager). I had called and left him a message yesterday.

We have never spoken before and so I introduced myself and apologised if I was crossing a boundary by contacting him directly.

He was extremely nice. He said that he was much more comfortable talking to me directly and it really wasn't his style to not know who was living in his home and to never have any contact with them. I explained how we had come to get the dogs, and how we wanted to keep them, and how we were willing to offer any gesture of security/goodwill if they would consider it.

He was very happy that I had contacted him and been honest about the situation and said he couldn't see it being a problem at all. He is going to contact the PM and let them know the dogs are OK. He was also very appreciative that we had looked after the place so well and that we have always paid our rent on time.

He has to discuss it with his partner first and we can then come to an arrangement about compensation/security. I suggested an extra $20 per week rent or perhaps additional bond.

Thank you everyone for your advice, it really helped particularly the advice relating to negotiation - I feel so much better now. I am really glad I have touched base with this him and have told him he is welcome to contact us whenever he needs to in the future, about anything at all. It feels good to me to develop a relationship with the owner as opposed to the anonymous property manager go between. He is happy with this development as well.

Im extremely pleased we have managed to come to an arrangement and he was so willing to work with us over this.
I will of course feel even more pleased when it is guaranteed by having a contractually concrete arrangement that alters our lease but at the moment its all looking good.

[Leftette]

Umm. He hasn't mentioned it to his wife yet?

[Melaney]

Not yet, as we only just spoke. Im hoping that she is as amenable as he was, but he didn't consider it would be a problem.

You make a good point that she needs to be onboard and this isn't guaranteed at this point - hence the fact I will feel more secure about the whole thing once we have a contractually concrete arrangement! But so far it sounds very positive.