Anyone know Virginia's "Service Animal" laws ?

Question

I'm reading a lot about tenants and prospective tenants trying to skirt around "no pet" leases / rentals by claiming that they have "support animals" ..

I am in Virginia and wondering if anyone is familiar with how this issues is handled here? Also what are some of the industry "best practices" regarding the subject? Id love to hear from you all about your experiences.

Thanks in advance

Jason Tassinari · Answer

You're the best, I knew that you would know lol .. Thanks :-)

Patti Robertson · Answer

Virginia considers both ESAs and Service Animals to be "Assistance Animals". I do use petscreening.com but don't like the way they address Service Animals. Virginia allows us to validate any Assistance Animal.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

This appears to be a copy of the Federal law. It's interesting that Virginia would waste time echoing an existing Federal law, but maybe they don't have enough to do over there?

Russell Brazil · Answer

Service animals/esa are protected under the Fair Housing Ammendments Act of 1988 where disability was included as a protected Fair Housing Class. Service animals are to be treated no different than say a wheelchair.And just to head it off at the pass before the inevitable wrong chime in that always comes from this type of discussion....the ADA has zero to do with Residential Real Estate. It is a law that governs Public Accommodations, so the definitions in that law have nothing to do with the residential side.

Greg Scott · Answer

Added comment Both @Nathan G. and I used the correct terminology, "Service Animal". Looking closely at the vests those dogs are wearing it says "Service Dog". Anything that says "Dog" is a pretty good indication that it is a fake.

Matt Devincenzo · Answer

Take a look at this thread here:https://www.biggerpockets.com/...There are several ways to handle this which have been suggested above. Personally I don't charge pet rent, pet deposit or any other 'fee' and I allow animals. So for me it's a non issue, call your animal whatever you want the base rent is the same no matter what. But that fits with my tenant demographic, I'm getting people who are generally looking for a nice rental in a lower cost area than the beach communities or the other 'trendy' parts of town. They are actually paying a premium in my area for the nice yard, nice updated kitchen, bath etc and the ability to have a garage and pets. So I don't have any extra fees or charges, I give them everything and get ~10-15% higher rent than my competition for it.

Alex Guzmán · Answer

@Jason Tassinari Virginia updated its Fair Housing Law a few years ago to specifically address “assistance animals.” This was in response to housing provider confusion around the responsibilities. I’ve quoted the relevant section below: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/v...

Alex Guzmán · Answer

@Nathan G. It’s a combination of the Federal law and the HUD guidance. There’s an interesting legislative history— initial drafts were much more friendly to housing providers, but HUD threatened to withdraw its Fair Housing enforcement funds bc it would not be “substantially equivalent” to the Federal law.

Greg Scott · Answer

This is federal law, although I suppose some locations may have local ordinances. Too many people try to cheat. True service animals will be trained and have paperwork to show it. We require residents supply that information. Emotional Support Animals are more of a gray area. DOJ and DOT do not recognize Emotional Support Animals, but HUD does. After years of asking for clarification, HUD finally published some guidelines. (link below)At our properties, we require any request for an ESA to come with a letter from a health professional licensed in the state, per HUD guidelines. We do not tell the residents this is what is required. Anyone who really needs an ESA should have had this prescribed to them from a mental health professional. More often than not, we get a printout from a web site where for $20 you can get an official-looking emotional support animal "certificate". When we get that crap, we simply hand them a form that indicates that their evidence did not meet the criteria set forth by HUD to qualify as an ESA. We never had anyone argue against that simple letter because they know they are trying to cheat and got caught.Read the HUD guidelines here: https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfil...I recently saw a woman with an adult bulldog in a department store with a vest that said "Support Animal in Training". It was obviously crap. It was also clear that she had no experience in how to train animals whatsoever. After giving her a long glance, she repeatedly asked her dog to sit or lie down (without reinforcing the command) to supposedly demonstrate that he was in training.

Nathan Gesner · Answer

First off, service animals are covered by Federal law so it's pretty much the same everywhere. The term "Service Animal" is typically referring to an animal that is specially trained to help with a physical disability (e.g. guide dog for the blind) while an Emotional Support Animal is prescribed for someone dealing with mental issues like PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc. The ESA requires absolutely no training and can be any "common household animal" such as a dog, cat, or lizard. The ESA is where you typically see fraudulent applications. I say fraudulent, but the applicants are actually following the law. The problem is that the law sets a very low standard, making it easy for anyone to claim a disability and have an animal prescribed. Based on personal experience and what I've heard from other Landlords and Property Managers, the vast majority of ESA claims are people trying to skirt a no-pet policy.Second, you could spend the time researching the law and learning how to enforce it, but it's very time-consuming and can be difficult to weed out fraudsters, non-compliant applicants, etc. My recommendation is to sign up for a free account with Petscreening.com and let them handle it. They ensure every applicant meets the legal requirement. They verify the prescription is legit and current. It weeds out a lot of applicants, but it won't stop every service animal because some Tenants are smart enough to know how to abide by the law.Virginia law: https://www.nolo.com/legal-enc...HUD Guidance on Service Animals (important to read/understand): https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfil...