Tenant with Late Payment History wants a Dog

[Chris Guinn]

Hello BP Forums,

Two months ago one of our tenants expressed interest in adopting a dog and inquired about our pet policy. We are a pet-friendly property, so I shared our Pet Addendum doc with the tenant, outlining pet fee, pet rent, etc. After sharing the addendum, we didn't heard anything else from the tenant about their desire to move forward with getting a dog.

Fast forward two months, and today we received a message from our tenant expressing their desire to move forward with a pet adoption. However, since the date of their initial inquiry, this tenant has paid their rent late for the past two months.

Given that the tenant's payment history as of late has been a little rockier, I'm hesitant to give this tenant the go-ahead to adopt a dog - however we have already made it clear to the tenant that we are a pet-friendly property.

Given the above context, some questions I have are:

(1) Could I tell this tenant that they cannot get a dog after I've already established that we do allow pets? Any tips on how to do so tactfully? Could I site their history of late rent as a reason to say "no" to a pet? 

(2) What would you do in this situation? For additional context, we inherited this tenant in June and aside from the past two months where they paid rent a few days late, they have otherwise always paid on time and have generally been an ideal tenant: quiet, clean, polite, etc. 

Any input would be appreciated, thank you!

[John Teachout]

The issue I would see is that the tenants are apparently already having issues in managing their finances and now their expenses are going to increase with additional fees, additional pet rent, pet food, vet bills, etc. I would raise that issue with them. ie, you've paid your rent late twice and how are you going to handle these additional expenses and still make timely payments? But wait! They can just spring the ESA thing on you...