My friend and I have recently moved into a new apartment that currently has a no pet rule for the building. Since being here, we've seen a few people coming and going with dogs, and seen a cat living in one apartment through the windows.
When looking for flats, we were having issues finding anywhere and just getting blanket refusals when we disclosed that we had pets (my friend a dog and me a cat).
We asked the agent showing us around this flat about the no pet policy and he said it wouldn't matter by May because of the new rules anyway. We took the apartment without disclosing our pets with the plan to bide our time until the rules were in place next month and then write for permission.
However, since discovering our landlord is an agency (with us having a specific property manager rather than one landlord) we've recently gotten nervous about how the request will work and the likelihood of us getting refused. Our pets are currently with our parents in the short term for our move and we don't have a back up plan if permission is refused.
Can anyone tell us the likelihood of reasonable refusal in our circumstances, and what we can do to hopefully increase our chances of there are issues? The dog is only small (bichon) and my cat is indoor and fully litter trained.
TIA