A Milestone for dog owners in Iceland

Good news came yesterday when Alþing, the Icelandic Parliament approved a legislation by Inga Sæland, Minister of Social Affairs and Housing, amending the law on apartment buildings, which stipulates that dog and cat ownership will no longer be subject to approval from other apartment owners.

The law entails that:

1. People living in apartment buildings who share stairwells with others no longer need approval from other owners to own a dog or cat.
2. Housing associations will, however, be able to set rules regarding dog and cat ownership, as long as these are reasonable, appropriate, and based on equality. 
3. Housing associations can still ban dogs and cats if the animals cause significant disturbance, nuisance, or disruption and owners do not respond to warnings from the housing association and remedy the situation. Thus, a housing association could, for example, ban individual cases of pet ownership if allergies were at such a high level that cohabitation with the animal would become unbearable and no solutions could be found to remedy the situation.
4. However, approval from 2/3 of owners is required for such a ban, and the same applies when a pet owner seriously or repeatedly violates their obligations under the law or the housing association's rules, despite warnings from the housing association. The housing association can then ban the pet ownership in question with approval from 2/3 of owners and require the pet owner to remove it from the building.

An important step was taken in dog owners' rights with this legal change. 

There was a dog ban in Reykjavik for 60 years, from 1924-1984. However, it wasn't until 2007 that the dog ban was completely lifted, except that dog (and cat) ownership in apartment buildings was subject to approval from 2/3 of owners who shared a common entrance or stairwell. With this change in law, that is now a thing of the past and will allow more people to own dogs or to keep their dogs when they need to move to another apartment. This has been incredibly difficult for dog owners in past years.

Here you can read more about the Dog Ban in Reykjavik - this blog post is actually the most read post on this site.