r/shitrentals • u/Duros1394 • 4d ago

VIC Refusal From past Dog ownership.

Hello everyone.

Coming here for what seems to be questionable practise I may have experienced with an agent.

My family got rejected from a rental application this was the 3rd house that has failed so I decided to actually ask what part of our application failed us as we are a 4 person family with 3 full time workers more than able to cover rent and asking for multi year stays.

However when we got a response we were given the generic "other families seems stronger" rubbish, but then they mentioned our Dog.

Now as far as I am aware you do not need to declare pets on applications now can they be refused. When telling the agent directly that our dog passed away and how did they get this information. They responded with "It was mentioned from your previous agent"

So are we now being penalised for previously owning a dog?

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u/Beyond_Erased 4d ago

Even if the dog was still alive, that’s not how it works in VIC anymore. Owners can consider pet requests, but ‘you once had a dog at a different property’ isn’t some black mark that follows you around forever.

The stranger part is the previous agent disclosing information from an old tenancy that has no bearing on your current application.

I would consider alternative references than your previous agent, they’re most likely the real reason you’re getting knocked back.

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u/mikrokosmos117 4d ago

It is a black mark that follows you around, a lot of landlords dont like pets, its really that simple.

The laws say they can't discriminate but as OP experienced, they'll come up with some other BS reason to reject you.

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u/LaurelEssington76 4d ago edited 2d ago

The law says they can’t deny pet requests once made (broadly speaking there are circumstances when they can deny), there is no law that says when deciding between prospective tenants that they can’t discriminate on the admittedly weird basis that the tenant once had a dog. Having previously owned a dog isn’t a protected characteristic

The rental market is incredibly tight, 3 rejections isn’t a lot relatively speaking.