Dog Forum banner

Emotional support dog in the UK

24K views 11 replies 6 participants last post by  DSanders 
#1 ·
I got my Rat terrier while I was living in NYC and had no problems housing him in rented accommodation with me as the city is pretty dog-friendly. However since moving to the UK I have found it very difficult to find any landlords that are willing to consider having dogs.
The issue is that Rat is an emotional support animal but unfortunately that is not recognised in the UK and only service dogs (specifically seeing eye/hearing/epilepsy dogs) are granted any leniency with housing. The only reason I am able to rent at the moment is because my aunt owns the house I live in and kindly allows me to keep the dogs.
Since emigrating I have acquired a note from my doctor stating that Rat is a necessary part of keeping me healthy and must be with me at all times. But this is not the same as certification and private landlords may still deny your application to rent if they don't want pets :( The only thing they cannot do is evict you because you have a dog that is recognised by a medical professional as being emotionally supportive.
In May I will be moving again and I'm torn about what to do. If I am open about having a dog the landlord may well refuse or say they have found someone else. If I don't declare the dog I will have deceived the landlord/agency and I don't really want to be on bad terms with anyone :/
Does anyone in the UK have experience with finding housing with an emotional support animal??
 
See less See more
#2 ·
In your case, if you can't find pet friendly housing, you might just lie and say she is a service dog and provide them the documentation for your doctor. Most people don't really know the difference. But, do try to avoid that situation and seek pet-friendly living. You might be best off looking in the classifieds or talking to other pet-owners to find the right avenues. Good luck!
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the advice :)
After the bad experiences I've had in this country with renting with pets I'm really quite scared to even mention I have a dog at all! Before I moved to my aunt's house I was turned down by 6 agencies... that's whole agencies, not just landlords! I told them all that I had documentation for the dog and that legally he is not just a 'pet', but their answer was simply "the home owner will not allow animals" :/ I mean what do you say to that? There's really nothing I can do. So I fear I will end up not declaring my dogs and living in anxiety hoping that the landlord doesn't find out. The reason I have my support dog is to ease feelings of anxiety but living in the UK my support dog is becoming a SOURCE of anxiety :(
Something really needs to change in this country...
 
#4 ·
I don't live in the UK, so I can't be that much help on specifics, but have you tried googling "pet friendly living in (insert town/city name here)" or something similar? Maybe ask around wherever your going to be moving to and see if anyone has any suggestions. I bet there are pkaces that accept animals, you just have to dig for them.
Also, is there any way you can get your dog certified as a service dog in the UK?
 
#5 ·
I've tried googling lots of different things. The only helpful thing that comes up is how to write a "C.V" for your dog to show to landlords. I did that but when I tried to give it to landlords and agencies it was turned down. They wouldn't even take it from me, just said they won't allow pets.
I'm now having to look for more rural areas because there is a higher chance that dogs will be allowed. But it is still very subjective and a landlord with other applicants will definitely choose one without a dog :/
There's absolutely no way my dog can be certified. The only certification that the UK will recognise outside of guide/hearing dogs is PAT dogs (Pets as Therapy). You can train for the test yourself and then volunteer in hospitals/schools etc but again this gives you no special rights with housing and unfortunately my dog would never pass the training anyway due to his temperament :(
It's such a frustrating situation. This issue with a lack of tolerance for pet-friendly accommodation is the number one cause for animal abandonment in the UK but it seems that everyone is very closed minded here :/
 
#6 ·
We have two dogs and live in the UK and have never struggled to find a landlord that will let us rent a property, we've lived all over the place too...sure we had a few turn us down but we've always found a property in the end and we've moved house six times now since having dogs! :D

We did write out a kind of CV for our dogs, basically stating their age, that they were well trained (including toilet trained) and crate trained, so were never left to roam the property alone. We also offered a higher deposit / bond to show we were responsible pet owners, although no landlord ever took us up on this.

When we were looking for a new place to move we would always find a big long list of houses that we were interested in and just ring around them all, crossing off the ones that were no pets. Keep looking, you will find somewhere eventually :)
 
#7 ·
Wow really?? That's certainly given me hope! :)
for the last three years I have lived in the city so I figure that has something to do with it. Plus it's a university city so maybe that adds the lack of pet friendly places too :s I lived in Surrey for a while which I thought would be dog friendly because it's semi-rural but had huge problems with people turning me away and when I finally found a place the neighbours complained about the dogs barking and it caused so much stress that I felt I had to move :/
What areas have you lived in, if you don't mind me asking? Do you find living out of the city easier or has it not made much difference?
 
#8 ·
We've lived in Stoke-On-Trent, right near Hanley city centre, quite a few of the villages dotted around the outskirts of Bradford, then moved to Morecambe and Carnforth. I think they were all fairly similar really in terms of finding somewhere that allowed pets...moving to Lancashire we did get quite a few places that said no but it wasn't long until we found some properties that allowed pets.

It's certainly taken a bit of luck, but as long as we've kept ringing up as many places about as many properties as possible we've always found somewhere fairly easily, within a few weeks of looking anyway :)

Getting our deposit back is another matter...the last place charged us £350 to have the carpets cleaned after we'd already paid to have them cleaned ourselves!! :p

Good luck finding somewhere, don't give up! :)
 
#9 ·
thanks so much for the info, it has made me feel a lot better :) I am getting so stressed about it because I need to have my dog with me.
I guess it is just a numbers game and hopefully I won't be too limited for choice. My Mother is also moving with me and she's not really a dog lover :/ so I would feel awful if she couldn't get the place she wanted just because of the dog situation :/
Thanks very much!
 
#12 ·
Hi all, I have registerd my dog with a new Emotional Support Registry in the UK - although ESAs have no legal rights in the UK, these guys are gathering data to prove to the UK Government that ESAs are essential and are being prescribed by doctors in the UK so as to change the laws. I had an issue with accomodation but after registering they sent me information on helping to get any accomodation with an ESA in the UK. It has helped me massively and I can now go anywhere in London with my ESA. https://ESAORGUK.com
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top