Can a Landlord Refuse an Emotional Support Animal (ESA)?

A companion who provides some assistance to a person with a physical, mental, or emotional disability is known as an emotional support animal (ESA). The goal of an emotional support animal is to give its owner the emotional support they need to lessen at least one symptom, effect, or aspect of their disability. Service dogs assist people in different ways than emotional support animals, which are usually used by those with emotional or mental disabilities.

People benefit from service dogs in many ways. Both guide dogs and hearing dogs, also known as signal dogs, provide assistance to those who are blind or visually impaired. Mobility dogs assist people with balance issues, those who use a wheelchair, walker, or their feet to get around more independently, and anyone else. Unlike emotional support pets, these service animals are typically dogs rather than any other kind of animal. 

Emotional support animals do not require specific training to help individuals with disabilities, in contrast to service animals. Although emotional support dogs are the most popular type of emotional support for pets, emotional support animals are not limited to dogs. Additional popular species of emotional support animals encompass cats, hamsters, reptiles, and occasionally, equines.

The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits an apartment complex from denying any applicant on the grounds of their ethnicity, age, race, sexual orientation, religion, or disability, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

A person with a physical or mental impairment that significantly limits one or more of their major life activities is considered to have a disability, according to the FHA. In addition, the FHA views a person as having a handicap or disability if there is documentation of the person’s impairment or if the person is believed to have an impairment.

Landlords and apartment building managers are also required by the FHA to provide reasonable accommodations for people with any recognized physical or mental disability. Furthermore, under the FHA, owners of emotional support animals are not required to pay a pet fee or deposit.

The Fair Housing Administration (FHA) stipulates clearly that landlords must provide reasonable accommodations for tenants with disabilities, which includes those who own assistance animals. A reasonable accommodation, for the purposes of Animal Law, is any modification, exception, or adjustment to a regulation, policy, procedure, or service that might be required to provide a person with a disability with an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common areas.

A landlord who permits therapy animals to roam around the building, at least partially, is an example of a reasonable accommodation. Note that this does not imply that all rooms, such as the gym or other tenants’ apartments, should accept your emotional support animal. For the sake of your pet’s health and wellbeing, you should let it roam around the building with its emotional support animal.

Other appropriate modifications consist of:

• Allowing owners of assistance animals entry to a typical apartment building.
• Requiring them to pay the apartment’s average monthly rent.
• Even in cases where there is a no-pets policy, they are still able to keep their support animal for free.

Because an emotional support animal is regarded as a medical tool rather than a pet, the FHA prohibits landlords from denying housing to owners of ESAs or emotional support animals. This law also exempts your ESA from any pet deposit or pet fee, and it applies even to buildings with no-pet policies.

Nevertheless, you will still have to give your landlord a record demonstrating that your animal is an emotional support animal rather than a regular pet. This letter is called an ESA Letter for Housing, or an emotional support animal letter.

A licensed mental health professional (LMHP) writes and signs official documents called ESA Letters. These letters may be supplied by the physician you are currently seeing or by a reputable online ESA provider.

Your landlord is not permitted to request any additional documentation from you once you have given them your ESA Letter, which can happen either before or after you sign your lease. It is not necessary for you to provide any medical records or medical history, talk about your mental illness, or reveal the diagnosis or level of your emotional or mental impairments.

Your landlord is required to provide housing for you and your support animal if you, the tenant, have a disability and your animal helps to mitigate or assist with this disability. There are a few exceptions to this rule, though. For example, your landlord is allowed to refuse your assistance animal. To learn more about these exceptions, continue reading.

Although it is legally required of landlords to provide accommodations for emotional support animals, there are specific situations in which your landlord may legally refuse to accept your emotional support animal. Despite the fact that there are laws protecting housing rights for people with disabilities or mental health issues, there may be other reasons your legitimate request is turned down.

There are some accommodations that are exempt from FHA regulations. Therefore, housing for your ESA is not required by law to be provided by these accommodations. Among these accommodations are:

• Private clubs and organizations manage the housing, and only members are allowed to occupy it.
• Structures with four or fewer units, at least one of which is occupied by the owner.
• Single-family homes rented out without the assistance of a real estate agent. The number of single-family homes that the homeowner may own is limited to three.

Furthermore, college and university campuses are exempt from the FHA’s regulations regarding the accommodations of emotional support animals, even though college dorms are. This implies that most colleges won’t be overly enthusiastic about having animals wander around the campus.

2.   An Illegitimate ESA Letter

Your landlord may refuse your ESA letter for dog if you give them an unauthorized or invalid ESA letter. Anything from a document from a phony or counterfeit online business to a letter from a healthcare professional not authorized to practice in the nation, ESA registration “badges” and IDs, or even a letter you made yourself can be considered an illegitimate ESA Letter.

It is also advised that ESA Letters for housing be renewed at least once a year, even in the absence of guidelines on this matter. This is due to the fact that a lot of landlords won’t accept an ESA Letter that is more than a year old, and some therapists won’t validate an ESA Letter that is out of date.

The majority of the time, your landlord is in charge of keeping up the property you live in. Pets can be messy and can leave bite marks on surfaces or scratch doors in accommodations, as pet owners are well aware. Should your assistance animal have a tendency to cause harm to property, your landlord may be responsible for covering those costs. Your landlord might reject your support pet as a result of this. The best defense against this is to teach your assistance animal to be well-mannered, composed, and peaceful.

Many landlords may reject your ESA if other tenants have allergies that could cause more serious health issues. Similarly, your landlord has the right to refuse an ESA who exhibits disruptive behavior that could end up costing you money in the future.

Recall that we stated that any animal could be an ESA. That encompasses llamas, horses, and peacocks, among other animals. Your landlord might deny your request to move into a tiny apartment if you have a large assistance animal. The landlord and the service dog may have to pay more for maintenance if your support animal is too big for your space.

If your landlord declines your ESA, it’s probably for one of the previously mentioned reasons. Contact the organization that issued your official ESA letter if you believe your landlord is just refusing your assistance animal because they have a no-pet policy or for any other illogical reason.