Leasing to tenants with service animals.

As a landlord, you need to be aware of your responsibilities and your tenant’s rights when it comes to service animals.

Definitions
The question always arises—what is a “service animal” or an “emotional support animal?”

A service animal means any dog that is is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Tasks performed can include, among other things, pulling a wheelchair, retrieving dropped items, alerting a person to a sound, reminding a person to take medication, or pressing an elevator button.

Emotional support animals (also known as “comfort animals” or “therapy animals”) can be any kind of animal as long as it alleviates symptoms of the handler’s disability. There must be a connection between the individual’s disability and the service, comfort or companionship that the animal provides.

Service/Emotional Support Animals vs. Pets
Landlords often don’t allow pets on their properties, but service/emotional support animals must be handled differently. Under the Fair Housing Act, housing providers are obligated to permit, as a reasonable accommodation, the use of animals that work, provide assistance, or perform tasks that benefit persons with a disabilities, or provide emotional support to alleviate a symptom or effect of a disability.

Landlords cannot charge any extra deposits or higher monthly rents to have a service/emotional support animal in place. This differs from our pet policy. Tenants with pets typically pay slightly higher monthly rent, or pay a separate pet deposit to cover potential damage.

Health and Safety
A landlord may deny a tenant’s request to keep a service animal if there’s a direct threat to the health and safety of others or if the animal would cause physical damage to property of others. For example, if you own a complex with a lot of common areas with personal property and the service animal is causing damage to that property, a landlord can have the service animal removed.

Discussing the Disability
Another question that often arises is whether landlords can ask a tenant to prove their disability. A landlord may not ask a housing applicant about the existence, nature, and extent of his or her disability. However, an individual with a disability who requests a reasonable accommodation may be asked to provide documentation so that the landlord (and/or homeowner’s association) can properly review the accommodation request. They can ask a person to certify, in writing, (1) that the tenant or a member of his or her family is a person with a disability; (2) the need for the animal to assist the person with that specific disability; and (3) that the animal actually assists the person with a disability.