Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Pennsylvania

need help with a rental-landlord problem involoving pets

I am in a yearly lease in my second year. The landload was a personal freind of mine and had verbally allowed us to have pets without paying the normaly pet fees. We had a cat and a larger dog in the first 6 months of out first year. We had to get rid of the first dog due to his health problems, and about 6 months later and 2 months into out next lease we got another dog, a rottweiler puppy. Well at this we were told we were't allowed to have rottwilers and we had to get rid of him. Now understandably, a rottweiler is scarier looking than our previous dog, but no larger. I want to know if there is anything we can do about it because I feel that it is going to become a court issue.


Asked on 2/14/04, 10:00 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Re: need help with a rental-landlord problem involoving pets

Is this a complex or a small single owner rental? What does the lease say? Living in a co-op, an apartment, any shared property situastion requires compromises.

WHAT does the lease say? If you pay extra for the dog could you keep it under the lease? You may need to pay extra for the dog, because the only real chance I see for you would be to argue waiver of the objection to the dog, but if the landlord objects based upon safety, because the lease prohibits certain dogs (such as rotweilers, dobermans, dogs over 35#, etc.), or because he knew you and KNEW the other dog had been a pet for x years and he couldn't bear telling you you couldn't keep it, that he allowed an exception for THAT dog...

Particularly if it is not a large complex, I expect you will lose before a judge.

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Answered on 2/16/04, 5:56 pm


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