Re: Legacy tenant with pit bull - Landlord Forum thread 236679

Re: Legacy tenant with pit bull by Bunny *M*A*G*I*C* on October 5, 2011 @18:46

If the tenants are all on a month to month in your units, you may give the tenant with the pit bull an advance notice that you are terminating the tenancy on a specific date. If the tenant has been there longer than a year, the advance notice might be 60 days instead of 30 days--and it depends on what state you're in too and as A.T.SF (CA) posted in a recent thread, there may be additional stipulations "if you are in a Rent Control City/County or if this is a SFH vs. Multifamily Dwelling in a rent control environment."

You don't have to give a reason, but if the tenant has been there for a while and has paid rent on time and keeps the place clean, you might want to mention insurance considerations--maybe others with more experience could chime in here.

If the tenant offers to give the dog to a family member, draft a new M2M agreement with a specific pets clause and that the new M2M will go into effect on a specific date(follow the law on this).

Here's what I have in my M2M--it might need tweaking for your purposes:

"Pets & Animals: No pets or animals of any kind from the animal kingdom are allowed on or about the premises at any time under the terms and conditions of this agreement. Pets or animals of guests/visitors are not allowed at any time on or about the premises under any condition. Do NOT feed stray pets or animals."

I include the wording "animal kingdom" because that pretty much covers any living breathing thing that is an animal but isn't homo sapiens. It prevents me from listing every kind of animal someone may have as a pet.

Often, people will say they didn't think I meant fish, which is why they have a 40 gallon aquarium! ... or they didn't think I meant an iguana, because they're not animals, they're reptiles...or they didn't think I meant their cockatoo because that's a bird and not an animal. Yeah, I guess those folks failed Life Science/Biology.

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