Navigating Service and Support Animals as a Landlord

Welcome or welcome back! I’m Cassie Villela, a Realtor® in San Antonio, Texas specializing in helping real estate investors. Sometimes landlords find themselves in sticky situations when it comes to a tenant with a service or support animal. You know there are rules and laws about it, but they’re all so unclear. Here I unpack the rules regarding service and support animals within the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Watch the video or read on to learn more.

Why do we need to know this?

In the real estate investing community, I have heard tons of stories about dealing with tenants’ service and support animal issues. Some are not so bad, and some are absolute horror stories. You can find a lot of information and OPINIONS online about how to deal with these issues, but it is difficult to know and understand what the rules actually are.

I’m telling you this so that you can be aware and remind you that not everything you read is true. I want to do my best to show what the laws actually say, so that you can make sure you are in compliance. More importantly, I think that following these laws will help you do the right thing by your tenants, their needs, and their service animals. Here, I will only be referencing the text verbatim from the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act.

Some vocabulary

According the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “An Assistance Animal is an animal that works, provides assistance, or performs tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability or that provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified effects of a person’s disability. An assistance animal is not a pet.”

So you’ve got service animals that actually do tasks and then there are emotional support animals. Under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they are treated the same. There is not a difference, in terms of weather or not you are allowed to rent to them as a landlord. The key thing is that the animal is NOT a pet and is not treated as such (e.g. you cannot charge a pet deposit or fee for it).

Why must I accept a service animal?

Even if you have a no pets policy, according to the FHA, not allowing someone to bring a support or service animal is actually considered discrimination because the ADA specifically says that you need to do everything you can to make reasonable accommodations for someone with a disability. A reasonable accommodation would be altering a policy to allow a service animal.

Additionally, you are not allowed to restrict the breed or size of the service animal as you would a pet. When it comes to service animals, they are not considered pets and do not fall under these policies. You also cannot collect a pet deposit, again because they are not pets. However, if the animal causes damage to your property, the renter can be held responsible for paying for damages to be repaired.

Can I require proof that it is actually a service animal?

A lot of times, landlords ask if they can require proof to ensure that the animal in question is actually a service animal. This is kind of a grey and sensitive area. It seems that there aren’t clear lines according to HUD. If it is very clear that the person has a disability, then look further than that (e.g. the person is blind and has an assistance animal). In cases where the disability is not as apparent, you can ask for information to back up the claim that they’re making. However, they do not have to give you detailed information and you cannot make a qualification process or require a letter from a doctor. This would amount to giving this person an undue burden and would be discriminatory. I would encourage you to err on the side of caution and work with the tenant to establish satisfactory proof without placing too much of a burden on them. It is not required that you have to ask them for proof. Most Landlords are comfortable enough with a verbal explanation from the tenant, such as “I have PTSD and this is my service dog.”

Under the FHA, “…a resident or an applicant for housing makes a reasonable accommodation request whenever she makes clear to the housing provider that she is requesting an exception, change, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service because of her disability. She should explain what type of accommodation she is requesting and if the need for the accommodation is not readily apparent or not known to the provider, explain the relationship between the requested accommodation and her disability.”

To request the accommodation (breaking a policy to allow a service animal), they just need to make it clear what they’re asking for and tell you how their service animal helps them with the disability. You can’t make them jump through a bunch of hoops to prove their disability or that the animal is a service animal.

Noncompliance penalties

The penalties are pretty severe if you do not comply. Under the ADA, the maximum penalty is $75,000 for the first violation and $150,000 for the second violation. If you are found to be violating the FHA, the fine for the first violation is $16,000 and $37,500 for the second, and $65,000 for the third time. You really want to be careful that you don’t break these rules.

What if my insurance policy doesn’t cover aggressive breeds?

I get this question a lot! A tenant comes with a service animal, which is a pitbull and the landlord’s insurance will not cover this breed. According to a memo from 2006, under the FHA, “an accommodation is unreasonable if it imposes an undue financial or administrative burden on a housing provider’s operations. If a housing provider’s insurance carrier would cancel, substantially increase the cost of the insurance policy, or adversely change the policy terms because of the presence of a certain breed of dog, HUD will find that this imposes an undue financial and administrative burden on the housing provider.” This seems to say that if your insurance won’t allow this breed, then you’re off the hook. BUT, “However, the investigator must substantiate the housing provider’s claim regarding the potential loss of or adverse change to the insurance coverage by verifying such a claim with the insurance company directly and considering whether comparable insurance, without the restriction, is available in the market. If the investigator finds evidence that an insurance provider has a policy of refusing to insure any housing that has animals, without exception for assistance animals, it may refer that information to the Department of Justice for an investigation to determine whether the insurance provider has violated federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination based on disability.” This means that you have the burden of proof to say how it will cause you undue financial burden by verifying it with your insurance company, then demonstrate that there are no other plans in the market that will provide comparable coverage. This is pretty hard to prove, since there are plenty of other companies that offer policies that cover these types of animals.

What my insurance pro advised *

To investigate a bit further, I consulted with my agent, who has been on my channel and presented “Insurance for Landlords” a while back. I asked him what would happen in this situation. He said that typically renters’ insurance policies typically cover everything that needs to be covered in regards to animals. He added that if the landlord’s coverage had to get involved, they would have a hard time denying coverage when the tenant could not be discriminated against due to the dog being a service dog. Insurance providers are under the same FHA and ADA regulations landlords are, in terms of not being able to deny claims for service animals.

*This is not me giving you advice, as I am not a lawyer. This is what my agent told me would likely happen within his company in this hypothetical situation. Don’t come for us.

Conclusion

When in doubt, make sure you’re following the FHA and ADA. If you have a person asking for accommodation, try to accommodate them. Doing so will result in a tenant in your rental, and will prevent a potential $75k fine! I think it is just not worth it to try and fight it. Working with the tenant always works better than trying to work against them. Let me know in the comments if you have anything to add!