December 1st, 2025 marks the effective date for the final set of amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act introduced through the 2024 reforms.
These changes represent a massive shift for all stakeholders in the rental property industry and Tenancy as a software and education provider is ready.
“The general industry consensus is positive: the new pet laws are welcomed, provided tenants act responsibly. As a technology provider for property managers, we see it as our responsibility to help the industry navigate this change as smoothly and effectively as possible,” Craeg Williams, Managing Director of Tenancy said.
These legislative changes affect almost every part of the Tenancy technology platform, representing the largest set of required updates since the privacy law changes of 2020/2021.
After mapping these changes out, the Tenancy team have identified over 150 individual updates that need to be implemented.
“While it’s not feasible to complete everything by December 1st, a large portion will be live by then, with the remainder rolled out in phased updates shortly after. Our goal for these deployments is to deliver simple, practical solutions as fast as we can,” Williams said.
Pet Amendments and potential growth
It’s hard to predict how many tenants will request pets once the new provisions take effect. Historically, one of the biggest barriers for pet ownership within the rental market has been uncertainty- tenants either weren’t permitted pets at all, or feared that moving would mean losing their furry family member if the next property didn’t allow animals.
It stands to reason that these changes will show a growth in pet ownership in the tenant market, what isn’t clear yet is how fast this will happen.
Whatever the speed of the growth of pet ownership, it is important that property managers are ready to adapt and can manage this change with ease.
To assist with this, Tenancy have developed a comprehensive resource library to support property managers as they begin adopting the new requirements.
Commencement date
But don’t be too hasty requesting pet bonds and applying new pet conditions.
While the commencement date is December 1, all tenancies agreed to before this date are required to stick to the old rules.
“If the tenancy agreement is signed prior to that date and includes consent for pets, it is assumed that any related terms, such as how pet-related issues will be managed, were also agreed to at that time,” MBIE Senior Advisor Sarah Payton told Tenancy.
“What matters is not the tenancy start date, but the date on which the terms of the tenancy were agreed.”
There will undoubtedly be also some operational changes ahead, but Tenancy welcome these reforms and the greater flexibility they bring. Over the next month, Tenancy will be rolling out all required Pet-Tech updates – including both tenant-facing tools and, most importantly, all new features for property managers.
In short change is coming, but it’s positive change – and Tenancy is here to make sure property managers are ready for it, and the best thing here is that we will be delivering these features at no additional cost to our clients.
Pet Tech and Bond Webinars
We will be holding a series of webinars to discuss our pet tech and bonds roadmap and answer any questions property managers might have.
Monday 1st December at 11 AM Click here to register.
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 11 AM Click here to register.
Friday 5th December 2025 11 AM Click here to register
