Tenant Violated No Pet Clause Then Claimed ESA (emo dog)

[Greg Agius]

I am a California resident. I rented my former townhome through a prop managment company. In late August we notified our tenants who are 1 year through a 2 year lease that we would be moving back to their area from Seattle and would thus be taking care of the property directly. 

Last week we discovered that they have had a large dog on the property since the beginning of the lease. Its an 8 year old dog that I assume they have owned from the start. We asked them to remove the dog and pay 1 year back pet rent. They produced an ESA emotional support dog letter from one of these common websites, dating from just 3 weeks earlier. That's just 2 weeks after we told them of our move. During the 2 previous on site inspections, including 1 from just 2 weeks ago) the dog was carefully hidden and its food dish, etc taken away. 

Do I have any options for challenging the validity of the ESA? 

[Gail K.]

There are all sorts of websites that, for under $100, will sell a bogus ESA letter to pretty much anyone.  This is useless information.

What a landlord can actual require is notification from the tenants MEDICAL PROVIDER of the need for an emotional support animal.  Thus, while the landlord cannot ask the MEDICAL REASON for such, they can require actual documentation from the tenants medical provider.

You might want to google the internet for the appropriate form to print out and provide to the tenant to give to their medical provider to justify the need for this so-called emotional support animal.

Good luck.

Gail