A pet request is easy to say a clear yes or no to when the agreement, the bond and the condition photos all sit in one place. From 1 December 2025, residential tenants in New Zealand have a written right to request a pet, and landlords may require a pet bond of up to two weeks' rent on top of the general bond. The change is real, the process is clear, and the agencies finding 2026 calmest are the ones who have tidied their pet paperwork into the property file rather than into a separate folder beside it.
The instinct most agencies start from is that pets are a new compliance workload. That a property file already running tenancy paperwork, Healthy Homes evidence, and inspection history now has another stream to track, decide on, document and defend, with two weeks of extra bond paperwork bolted on.
The argument this guide makes is the opposite. Pets in rentals are not a new workload. They are a small new section of the same property file, sitting alongside the lease, the bond record and the inspection history. Handled well, a pet request takes the property manager about ten minutes of focused work, leaves a clean record on the file, and stops being a source of friction at exit. The rest of this guide walks through how to set up that small new section so it runs itself.
What changed on 1 December 2025
From 1 December 2025, three operational changes apply to every new tenancy and any new pet request inside an existing tenancy. A tenant has the right to request a pet in writing. A landlord may decline that request on reasonable grounds, with the reasoning recorded. A landlord may require a pet bond of up to two weeks' rent, on top of the general bond, lodged through Bond Hub, the Tenancy Services online bond service that launched the same day.
None of these are surprising. The Tenancy Services and HUD guidance has signalled them for months, and well-run agencies were already running a version of the process informally. What 2026 brings is the discipline of writing it down, in the same place, every time. That is not a burden. It is the chance to turn an inconsistent corner of the file into a tidy one.
Three changes, one tidy file
Written pet request
A tenant's request to keep a pet must be made in writing. The record goes on the property file the day it arrives.
Reasonable grounds to decline
A landlord may decline a pet request on reasonable grounds. What matters operationally is that the reasoning is documented at the point of decision.
Pet bond up to 2 weeks' rent
A landlord may require a pet bond of up to two weeks' rent, in addition to the general bond, lodged through Bond Hub.
The written request, handled well
A good pet request is one the property manager can act on within a few days, because the path from request to decision is the same every time.
When a tenant emails to ask about keeping a pet, the response that sets the tone is fast, polite, and process-led. Acknowledge the request within a working day. Explain what comes next, how long the assessment will take, and what the tenant can do in the meantime. Confirm whether a pet bond will apply if the request is approved, and that any approval will be paired with a short written pet agreement.
The internal handling matters as much as the reply. The request itself, whether it came as an email, a portal message, or a letter, goes onto the property file the day it arrives. The pet's species, breed, age, and any context the tenant has offered (a council registration number for a dog, a vet record, prior rental references for the pet) sit alongside it.
A self-managing Wellington landlord with four units can run this on a single screen. A 200-property Christchurch agency runs it through the same workflow every property manager already uses for any other tenancy event. The shape is the same, the place is the same, and the timing expectation is the same: a clear written decision within five to ten working days, ideally faster.
What the request file looks like at the end of this step is one entry per tenant, dated, with the request itself attached, the pet's details captured, the next step diarised, and the property manager's name against it. That is the record. The decision goes on top of it in the next step.
Reasonable grounds, recorded
Declining a pet request on reasonable grounds is straightforward. The part worth getting right is the record of why.
The right to decline a pet request on reasonable grounds is in the Tenancy Services and HUD guidance, and it covers most of the situations a property manager will meet in practice. What it does not cover is silence. A reasonable-grounds decline that lives only in the property manager's head, or in a phone call the tenant remembers differently, is the version of the decision that becomes harder to defend at renewal or at the Tenancy Tribunal.
Reasonable grounds tend to cluster around a small number of practical situations. Each is defensible on its own. What carries the defensibility is the record of the assessment.
- 01
Property type and physical setup
The property itself reasonably accommodates the pet. A first-floor apartment with no outdoor space and a request for a large dog is a clearer decline than the same dog at a fenced townhouse.
- 02
Body corporate or cross-lease rules
The title or body corporate rules restrict pets. The relevant clause goes on the file alongside the decline letter.
- 03
Site safety for the pet
Unsecured frontage to a busy road, an unfenced section, or a swimming pool that cannot be secured against a curious dog.
- 04
Property condition history
Previous documented pet damage at the same property that has not been remediated, captured in dated inspection records.
- 05
Landlord circumstances on shared property
The landlord lives on site and has a documented reason, such as a severe allergy, that makes the request impractical.
For each example, the decline is fine. What sits on the file is the assessment: the request, the reason, the date, and the property manager's name. That is what reasonable grounds, recorded, actually looks like.
The pet bond and the general bond
A pet bond and a general bond do the same job at exit. They earn it by being lodged separately and recorded separately from day one.
From 1 December 2025, a landlord may require a pet bond of up to two weeks' rent, on top of the general bond. The pet bond is lodged through Bond Hub. The general bond continues to sit alongside it under its own bond number. At exit, each bond is released on its own merits against the same tenancy file.
Operationally, this is one of the cleanest changes 2026 has brought. The structure is already familiar, the lodgement workflow already exists, and the only new discipline is making sure the pet bond is captured as a distinct line on the property file rather than absorbed into the general bond record.
What HomeReview holds on the file is the pet agreement itself, the receipt confirming the pet bond was lodged through Bond Hub, the pet bond reference number, and the dated condition photos that will support the bond conversation at exit. The lodgement is the agency's standard Bond Hub process. HomeReview does not lodge the bond and does not adjudicate the release. It holds the record cleanly, so the agreement, the lodgement evidence and the condition photos are all in one place when any of them are needed.
For a 30-property Auckland agency, the practical test is straightforward. Open a pet-tenancy file from earlier in the year. The written request, the assessment notes, the signed pet agreement, the pet bond receipt, and the entry-condition photos should all be there, in date order, on the same record. If they are, the rest of the tenancy runs the way any other does. If they are not, the place to start is the file shape, not the workload.
Condition evidence that protects everyone
A clean condition record makes any later pet-damage conversation straightforward and fair, in either direction.
Most pet tenancies end without incident. The ones that do not are usually resolved quickly when the condition record is good, and slowly when it is not. The difference at exit between a five-minute bond conversation and a five-week dispute is almost always the quality of the entry-condition evidence.
The standard is not complicated. Dated and timestamped photos of every interior space at entry, every exterior space the pet will use, and any specific surface or feature a landlord would reasonably want a baseline on (carpets, doors, decking, fencing, garden beds). The same set of photos at every routine inspection during the tenancy, captured against the same rubric. The same set again at exit. Three matched sets. One file.
HomeReview's role here is to make that discipline routine. Inspections are scheduled in the workflow, prompts go to the inspector at the right time, and the photos and notes are captured against the same rubric every visit. The tenant is responsible for pet-related damage beyond fair wear and tear, and a fair conversation about that responsibility starts from a record both sides can read.
The same discipline serves the tenant. Where wear is fair and the photos show it, the bond conversation closes quickly in the tenant's favour. Where damage has occurred and the photos show it, the bond conversation closes quickly in the landlord's favour. The asymmetry that frustrated pet tenancies in the past was not the rule. It was the absence of a shared record. In 2026, the record is the rule.
This sits inside the wider 2026 compliance picture for NZ property managers: condition evidence at signing, captured consistently, held in one place.
Where this leaves the property manager
A pet tenancy is not a special workflow. It is the usual tenancy with a small additional record: the written request, the assessment, the agreement, the pet bond receipt, and the matched condition photos. Each piece sits where the property manager already expects it. Each piece is dated, attributed, and producible on request.
For the property manager, this means the pet conversation stops being an inbox interruption and starts being a routine entry on the file. For the tenant, it means a clear yes or no, in writing, with the path from request to decision visible. For the landlord, it means a bond conversation at exit that runs against evidence rather than recollection. None of these are dramatic improvements. All of them are the difference between a calm 2026 and a noisy one.
_Sources: Tenancy Services (tenancy.govt.nz), Ministry of Housing and Urban Development (hud.govt.nz)._
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