Landlords of all property types, pet-friendly or not, will encounter tenants with service or assistance dogs (and other animals). Federal law requires reasonable accommodation for animals that help with tenant disabilities. Landlords can sometimes request documentation for a handicap or a service animal.
What Is a Service or Assistance Animal?
The law treats service and assistance animals mostly the same, but they’re two different types. A service animal has professional training to do tasks that help a handicapped person. An assistance animal has been recommended as helpful to someone’s handicap, whether or not the animal has specific training.
For example, a seeing-eye dog is a service animal, while an emotional support parakeet is an assistance animal. Service animals and assistance animals both have a right to reasonable accommodations under the Fair Housing Act.
Is a Service or Assistance Animal a Pet?
While they may be a valued member of a tenant’s family, the law does not consider service or assistance animals to be pets. Such animals help their owners with disabilities. They are exempt from any policies which might restrict their ability to offer proper service to their owners.
Disability does not automatically make all of a tenant’s animals service or assistance animals. If an animal doesn’t help with a tenant’s handicap, the law treats it as a normal pet regardless of the tenant’s disability. A tenant’s animal that isn’t a service animal gets treated just like any other pet would on the property, for legal purposes.
Does a Service or Assistance Animal Have To Be a Dog?
A service or assistance animal doesn’t have to be a dog. Any animal that helps with a tenant’s disability may qualify as a service or assistance animal.
When Can a Landlord Ask for Service or Assistance Animal Documentation?
Landlords have strict limits in what they can ask about disability-related service animals. They can ask what work or tasks an animal has been trained to perform, if the animal’s role is not obvious. They also can ask the tenant to confirm they have a disability that the service animal reasonably helps accommodate, again only if the disability is not obvious.
A landlord does not have the right to know any specific condition or treatment related to a tenant. A landlord may not demand medical records, documentation of training, or make the animal demonstrate its assistance capabilities. The tenant’s word is valid for establishing a disability and a needed accommodation.
Some states, like Colorado, do allow landlords to request a medical letter for emotional support animals only. The letter is limited to a medical professional confirming that the tenant has a disability assisted by the emotional support animal.
Exceptions to Fair Housing Act Coverage
Landlords in certain rental situations don’t have to accommodate tenant animals under the Fair Housing Act:
- Buildings with 4 or fewer units, if the landlord occupies one of the units (also known as the Mrs. Murphy exemption)
- Single-family housing sold or rented without a real estate broker
- Hotels and motels (not considered dwellings under the Fair Housing Act, but do require public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act)
- Private clubs
Additional Resources
The federal government publishes extensive guidelines on how to document and accommodate requests for a service or assistance animal. For more information on the Fair Housing Act and its requirements in this area, see these resources:
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Assessing a Person’s Request To Have an Animal
Sources
- 1 Sanzaro v. Akdiente Homeowners Ass'n LLC, 2:11-CV-01143-PMP-CWH, 13-14 (D. Nev. May. 23, 2014)
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Given the differences in the applicable regulations and the guidance from HUD and DOJ, the Court concludes that no special training is required for an animal to qualify as a service or assistance animal for FHA purposes. Rather, the relevant inquiry under the FHA is whether the animal performs the disability-related assistance or provides the disability-related benefit needed by the person with the disability. Whether the animal performs such services or provides such a benefit generally is a question of fact. Further, a housing provider may ask for documentation of the disability, or the need for an assistance animal, if the disability, the need, or both are not apparent.
Source Link - 2 Overlook Mutual Homes, Inc. v. Spencer, 666 F. Supp. 2d 850, 859 (S.D. Ohio 2009)
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[T]here is a difference between not requiring the owner of a movie theater to allow a customer to bring her emotional support dog, which is not a service animal, into the theater to watch a two-hour movie, an ADA-type issue, on one hand, and permitting the provider of housing to refuse to allow a renter to keep such an animal in her apartment in order to provide emotional support to her and to assist her to cope with her depression, an FHA-type issue, on the other. Based upon the foregoing alone, this Court would conclude that accommodations under the FHA regarding animals are not limited to service animals.
Source Link - 3 Castillo Condo. Ass'n v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev., 821 F.3d 92, 99 (1st Cir. 2016)
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[T]he ALJ discounted Giménez’s own testimony, apparently because he concluded that an individual cannot supply key testimony verifying his own disability status. Yet, our research suggests the opposite.
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