Many landlords choose to have a no-pets policy or place limitations on pets in their rentals. However, landlords (and other housing providers) are legally required to make reasonable exceptions—known as reasonable accommodations—to their rules for people with disabilities. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a reasonable accommodation is “…a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service that may be necessary for a person with a disability to have equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces.” This means that, despite stated rules restricting pets, a landlord might have to flex these policies to accommodate a person with a disability who needs to have an assistance animal. Landlords also cannot charge pet fees for assistance animals.
What Is an Assistance Animal?
Assistance animals are not pets under disability laws—they are animals that do work, perform tasks, assist, and/or provide therapeutic emotional support for people with disabilities. There are two types of assistance animals:
- Service animals: These are dogs and (sometimes) miniature horses that are trained to do specific work or perform specific tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability.
- Support animals: Most of the time, support animals are animals commonly found in households, such as dogs, cats, rabbits, hamsters, and other domesticated animals. Sometimes, unique animals, such as monkeys or barnyard animals can be support animals, but there must be a disability-related therapeutic need for the specific animal or type of animal. While “support animal” is the term used by HUD, you might also hear these animals referred to as “emotional support animals,” or ESAs.
Landlords can consider any animal that does not qualify as either a service or support animal to be a pet.
How Can Landlords Verify That an Animal Is an Assistance Animal?
When approached by a tenant or potential tenant about an assistance animal accommodation, landlords need to be very careful to not violate fair housing and disability laws. HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) January 28, 2020, memo lays out a series of questions landlords can ask themselves when evaluating a request to have an animal as a reasonable accommodation. The memo goes into these steps in detail, but here is a summary of the procedures the memo recommends. (Find additional information and resources on HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) January 28, 2020, memo here)
First: Is the Animal a Service Animal?
Sometimes, it’s readily apparent that a dog or miniature horse is trained to perform a task that helps a person with a disability, such as a dog guiding a person who is blind, or a miniature horse pulling a wheelchair. If you can readily observe that the animal is a dog or miniature horse trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability, your inquiry should stop right there: The animal is a service animal, and you must make reasonable accommodations.
If the animal is not a dog or miniature horse, it is not a service animal, but might be a support animal for which you will still need to provide an accommodation.
If it is not obvious that the dog or miniature horse is trained to do work for a person with a disability, you should limit your questions to the following:
- Is the dog or miniature horse required because of a disability?
- What work or task has the animal been trained to perform?
If the answer to the first question is “yes,” the animal is a service animal, and you must grant the accommodation if it’s reasonable. Do not ask about the nature or extent of the disability, and do not ask for documentation. If the answer to either question is “no” or “none,” the animal might still be a support animal for which you will still need to provide an accommodation.
Second: If It’s Not a Service Animal, Is an Accommodation Requested Anyway?
If someone asks you to bend your pet policies for an animal that is not clearly a service animal, you must ask yourself if the person has asked to keep an animal in connection with a physical or mental impairment or disability. If the request isn’t related to an impairment or disability—for example, the person just likes parakeets—you do not have to grant a reasonable accommodation. However, if the person mentions the animal is related in any way to an impairment or disability, your analysis must continue.
Third: Does the Requester Have a Disability?
Skip this step (and move directly to the fourth consideration) when you receive an accommodation request from:
- a person who has an observable disability
- a person for whom you already have documentation of the disability, or
- when someone has provided you with documentation of a non-observable disability.
When a tenant or potential tenant makes a request but doesn’t fall into one of the above three categories, you must give the person a reasonable opportunity to provide documentation. Acceptable documentation includes:
- a determination of disability from a federal, state, or local government agency
- receipt of disability benefits or services (Social Security Disability Income (SSDI)), Medicare or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for people under age 65, veterans’ disability benefits, services from a vocational rehabilitation agency, or disability benefits or services from another federal, state, or local agency
- eligibility for housing assistance or a housing voucher received because of disability, and
- information confirming disability from a health care professional such as a physician, nurse practitioner, psychiatrist, or nurse.
If you do not receive acceptable documentation after giving the requester reasonable time to provide it, you do not have to make an accommodation.
However, if you’ve determined the requester has a disability or impairment, the focus shifts to the animal’s qualifications, discussed next.
Fourth: Does the Requester Have Documentation of the Animal’s Qualifications?
You must provide the requester with reasonable opportunity to provide documentation of the animal’s qualifications as a support animal. You can direct the requester to HUD’s Guidance on Documenting an Individual’s Need for Assistance Animals in Housing (see page 16 of the PDF) if necessary. If the requester isn’t able to provide any information reasonably supporting that the animal does work, performs tasks, provides assistance, and/or provides therapeutic emotional support, you don’t have to grant the accommodation.
Once you have supporting documents showing the animal’s qualifications, you can move onto the fifth step.
Fifth: Is the Animal Commonly Kept in Households?
When a requestor provides information demonstrating that there’s a disability-related need for a dog, cat, or other small, domesticated animal that’s traditionally kept in homes for pleasure rather than commercial purposes, it’s an easy call: you’ll need to allow the animal regardless of your pet policy. However, what do you do when someone asks you to request a more exotic animal, such as a trained capuchin monkey?
In the case of non-domesticated animals not commonly found in households, the requestor must provide much more substantial documentation to support having the animal. There must be a disability-related, therapeutic need for the specific type of animal. For example, you might have to accommodate an exotic animal when the animal does work that cannot be performed by a dog, when the person with a disability can’t keep a domesticated animal due to allergies, or when the person seeks to keep the animal outdoors.
Other Important Considerations
The January 2020 HUD memo makes some other important points about evaluating requests for animal accommodations. Landlords should be familiar with the following points made clear by the memo:
- Landlords should attempt to make a determination about the accommodation request promptly. The memo suggests that that a response within ten days of receiving the request is reasonable.
- Landlords cannot require applicants to fill out a certain form or provide certain information about a disability. Rather, landlords should direct applicants with non-obvious disabilities to provide information that is consistent with what’s in the Guidance on Documenting an Individual’s Need for Assistance Animals in Housing (see page 16 on of the PDF) and Questions number 6 and 7 of the May 2004 Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act memo.
- Landlords do not have to accommodate animals that pose a direct threat to people or property that cannot be eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level through maintenance of control of the animal.
- When your lease or rental agreement states that misleading or false information provided in the application is grounds for termination, you can consider any information regarding the requested accommodation to be part of this. In other words, if you discover that the applicant has provided untrue information regarding the accommodation, you can use this as grounds to terminate the tenancy.
Online ESA Letters and Registration
Services exist on the Internet that provide certificates, registrations, and licensing documents for assistance animals to people who answer certain questions or participate in a short interview, and pay a fee. For example, some websites offer supposed registration services for ESAs. HUD explicitly states that this form of documentation is not, by itself, sufficient to establish a non-observable disability or disability-related need for an assistance animal. You’ll want to look for documentation from a health care professional with personal knowledge of the individual instead.
Getting Help
Although HUD’s memo doesn’t create law, it provides a set of tools and best practices landlords can use when evaluating whether they need to make a reasonable accommodation for a person with a disability. All landlords should be familiar with HUD’s 2004 memo on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act as well as its 2020 memo on Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act. For more information, landlords can visit the FHEO's website, or contact a local landlord-tenant attorney.