When it comes to pet policies, most property managers and housing providers strictly focus on the residents and applicants that willfully admit they own a pet or animal. Obviously, the goal is to make sure these residents and applicants are aware of management’s pet and animal policies. These policies are often addressed in the lease or an additional lease addendum and focus on things such as leashing rules, dog waste pick up, weight restrictions, age issues, breed exclusions, and more. This is a great first step but it leaves some questions unanswered.

PetScreening is podcasting! In episode 1 of the PetScreening.com pawdcast, PetScreening founder John Bradford talks about what steps property managers and landlords can take when their residents get a new pet as a gift over the holidays.

Surprise! One (or more) of your residents got a new pet over the holidays. While the image of new puppies and kittens popping out of gift boxes is undeniably adorable, new pets mean added liability for you as the housing provider and more responsibility for your residents to care for your rental property. 

PetScreening helps pet-friendly housing providers mitigate the risk that comes with housing pets and pet owners. Let's take a look at a few ways PetScreening can help hold your residents more accountable in your rental properties now and well into the New Year.

Some insurance policies have specific pet breed restrictions and for a housing provider to unilaterally apply these restrictions to assistance animals is ill advised. Why? Assistance animals are not the same as household pets.

Many landlords and property managers have implemented pet breed restrictions. At first pass, this seems logical because some breeds have a higher risk of a pet bite. What about higher-risk pet breeds that have very responsible and loving pet owners? Does the general risk profile change because these higher-risk pet breeds were raised to be well acclimated to their surroundings like being around other people and pets? Additionally, many landlords and property managers simply assume their general liability insurance has specific breed exclusions. This might sometimes be the case, but in many instances, it can be a false premise or a result of not shopping insurance options.

There are two Ps that can cause property damage - People and Pets. If you are a property manager then you deal with both on a daily basis. Pets are animals but animals are not always pets. This is demonstrated when dealing with Assistance Animals (i.e. service/companion/emotional/therapy/etc.) These animals are not pets, but rather, serve as an assistive device to help an individual with a disability.

Attention all OneSite users! PetScreening is a certified member of the RealPage Exchange AppPartner Program. Speed up your application process, standardize your pet policies and maintain compliance of HUD/FHAct regulations with PetScreening’s integration with RealPage OneSite.

Save time and let PetScreening do the busy work, by screening your applicants’ household pets and validating your assistance animal accommodation requests — then automatically syncing your pet/animal profiles to OneSite once they're complete. 

Hi there. It’s John Bradford, Pet Lover and Founder of PetScreening.com.

In the household pet screening process at PetScreening.com, we look at data points that focus on the "ABCs" (Affirmations, Behavioral, and Compatibility) of each pet and pet owner. The pet owner submits a pet application along with a final legal attestation to confirm validity. A Pet Profile is instantaneously generated and includes name, breed, weight, sex, age, pictures, vaccination information, micro-chip data, and behavioral information.

We listened to feedback and added custom options to property manager user accounts in PetScreening.com. 

With this, we are putting the FIDO Score at your finger tips!

Property managers can now limit paw scores based on their preferences and policies for Age, Weight, and Breeds. We've even added a zero-paw score for your firm's restricted breeds or pet sizes, if any. You may also customize which fields are required in the pet profile (e.g., photo, vaccination details & vaccination documentation).

Lastly, for firms that do not want to or cannot use our assistance animal accommodation review services, we are allowing property managers to disable this feature.

Check out the videos below for more information on these new custom options.

PetScreening.com is proud to announce it has been named the 2018 Affiliate of the Year by the National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM®).

NARPM is the premiere professional association for the residential property management industry and currently represents more than 5,200 members comprised of real estate agents, brokers, managers and their employees. Their mission is to provide resources for residential property management professionals who desire to learn, grow, and build relationships.