All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

Not necessarily.  While I think 99% of the ESA claims are total BS, I cannot deny more than one animal out right.

You can certainly have a service animal and an emotional animal.  A person that's blind needing a seeing eye dog and also some sort of anxiety disorder needing an ESA, and are two different animals.

While this is unlikely, I did have several inquiries recently from potential applicants saying they have multiple service animals.  The main issue here is they don't even know the different between service animals and ESA, they are mostly likely repeating what their friends told them "just say you have service animals and they will back off".  So when I told them I gladly accept service animals and emotional support animals, then went on to tell them their respective definitions and how I just need to have them provide a doctor's letter for me to call and verify, they never bother to follow through with the application.

But going back to whether multiple ESAs are legal, I did a search and there doesn't seem to be specific clauses on HUD about whether multiple assistance animals are OK, but I found this:

Michigan State College Of Law Animal Legal and Historical Center FAQ on ESA

At least this is the interpretation from a legal profession and on item #14 of the FAQ:

14. Can a person have more than one service or emotional support animal?

While there do not seem to be any cases dealing with the issue of multiple emotional support animals, the basic requirements for this reasonable accommodation would still be the same. In other words, if a person were claiming the need for multiple emotional support animals, then he or she would need documentation supporting this need from his or her physician or medical professional. The practitioner would need to provide documentation that each support animal alleviated some symptom of the disability.

 So I guess technically one person can have multiple ESAs as long as the doctor treating the patient prescribe that.

One other thing I found while reading through this FAQ is the following.

17. What about the emotional support animals/assistance animals of my guests?

HUD does not cover this issue specifically in its notice to housing providers. However, the underlying purpose of the FHA is provide an equal opportunity to use and enjoy housing regardless of disability. If a tenant cannot have a particular guest over who uses a service or assistance animal, then the tenant may be deprived of the ability to use and enjoy his or her dwelling based on the presence of a disability. There do not yet appear any published legal cases that have reviewed this issue. In 2011, the United States District Court for the District of Nevada entered a consent decree (a settlement of a lawsuit where a party agrees to take an action without admitting liability) on a this issue. The complaint in the underlying case alleged that the defendants declined to allow a friend of their tenants who uses a service animal to visit the tenants' apartment. The defendants then evicted the tenants based on the service animal's presence in the apartment. As plaintiff, the United States alleged that this denied the tenants the "full enjoyment of their apartment at Defendants' apartment building." See U.S. v. DeAngeli, Case No. 3:11-CV-00796-RCJ-WGC (July 8. 2013), available at http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2013/10/30/deangelisettle.pdf. As part of the agreement, the defendants had to agree to comply with the Fair Housing Act, create a policy for assistance animals in their apartment building, undergo education and training on the issue, and abide by other requirements of the consent decree.

I am more worried about a guest's ESA.  You can't screen a guest.  So if your lease allows a guest to stay for say 7 days a month, technically you have to allow that guest who has an ESA to visit with an ESA without your having an opportunity to verify.  As a matter of fact, your tenant may have a dozen close friends all having ESAs who visit from time to time.  How would any Landlord do?  There is really no defense against such abuse because there is no clause you can put in the lease to prevent that and there is no verification possible to guard against it.  

Possibly.

If your number rings straight to the "ESA Mill" then more than likely you will get no where.

If you end up reaching the actual doctor named in the certified letter, most likely that doctor has some sort of arrangements with the ESA certification company to use his/her name in that capacity.  The more likely outcome is you would reach the reception of the doctor's office and not able to reach the actual doctor.  They will have to take a message and pass the message onto the doctor for a call back that will never be returned.  If you tell them you want to talk to Dr. Smith about patient "Alex" or you want to verify that Dr. Smith has prescribed an ESA for patient Alex, my bet is you will be told they would mention HIPPA and say they can't discuss any patient or disclose any medical informaton unless the patient grant written permission to them prior, and even if your applicant is to write such letter, they will not do anything because there is no way they can verify the applicant IS the person writing the disclosure permission letter, especially since "Alex" has never been treated there.  However, you may be able to use the ability to verify "Alex" as a reason to reject the applicant and ESA.

I am guessing 5 days is the time it takes for the dead animal say a rat to be eaten by a larger animal like a possum, skunk or raccoon?  Or 5 days is how long it takes for a whole army of ants to consume a rat whole?

I don't allow improvement or repair by tenants either.

It's a bit more complicated then whether the tenant will mess up the sink change out.  There is also the issues of liability and ownership.

By changing out the sink, he would have to redo a bunch of stuff such as drain connection, water supply connections, garbage disposer, dishwasher hook up etc etc etc...so let's say after the sink was put in two months later a leak develops under the sink.  Who's responsible?  Would that be him who did all that stuff?  Didn't tighten enough a supply hose or nicked the dishwasher hose accidentally?  What if the leak was undetected for a while and caused additional damages to the cabinet sides and bottom and the flooring below?  Or would it be you the landlord who should be responsible for plumbing "failures" in general?

Who owns the improvement?  When a tenant buys his or her own refrigerator it's theirs and they can remove it when they leave.  When they buy a sink and modifies your countertop and plumbing to fit, they can't take it with them.  But can they claim they own the improvement and want some rent credit or payment in exchange at the end of the lease?  Like you want to charge them $450 for cleaning, painting and recarpeting, he saids he put in a sink for you that's worth $500 so you owes him $50 back?

What about issues that arises during the install?  He goes to buy a deeper bigger sink, ripped yours off, widens your countertop sink cutout, only comes to find out, that the extra depth of the sink lowers the disposer outlet enough to not work with the existing drain stubout at the wall.  Now he needs a shallower garbage disposer but he may want you to pay for it.  You can't go back to the old sink because the cutout has already been done.

The last time I allowed a tenant to "improve", they wanted to just paint one room.  They rolled over electrical wall plates, rolled over edges of window blinds, dripped paint on baseboards...it was A LOT OF work to undo their work.

To me it's not worth it.

why 5 days?

Have you watched Fatal Attraction?

I advertise before a unit is vacant with a date for occupancy and a date for showings.

i don't show a property until it's vacant for a variety of reasons.  Messiness during the move, not knowing who you are showing to could also result in you showing the refrigerator to one person and the other person may pocket an iPad in the bedroom, or your current tenant being there during the visit like "yeah that garbage disposal jams all the time"!  The only time I would make an exception is if it's a personal referral from an existing or ex tenant, then I would show with a "pardon the mess" warning.

i don't ask for an application until i have pre-qualified them during the showing.

I have a time line that triggers actions explicitly stated in my leases.

Rent due on the 1st.

Rent not credited to my account or check not received by 5pm EST on the 4th will trigger a late fee.  I don't care if the mail man lost the mail or it's the weekend or holiday or the bank didn't process the deposit on time or whatever, by the 4th day 5pm a late fee is charged.

By 5pm of the 9th day is rent is not paid in full, and paid in full means settlement of all previously invoiced charges, fines, late fees, damages PLUS the full rent, I file eviction.

They would ask for a grace period for the late fee.  I do have a grace period, that's why rent is due on the 1st but late fee doesn't kick in till COB of the 4th, the fact that they decided to think of rent being due on the 4th with no grace period, is not my problem.

They would also ask for a grace period for eviction.  I have that too.  That's why there is ten days of time between due day and eviction filing.

On occasion, I have made exceptions for longer term good tenants, who communicated that they can't make rent BEFORE they are late, AND it's no question they have experienced a sudden unforseen event beyond their control.  That's rare though.  It sounds like your tenant is habitually late, always having an excuse, and when something hit them unexpectedly, they have already lost their credibility.

A follow up question to my last post, in terms of how HUD has grouped service animals and ESA together and just put both under the umbrella of "assistance animals". Does that mean as far as HUD's fair housing is concerned, there is no distinction in their policies and guidelines on how SA and ESA owners are to be treated/screened/verified by landlords?

I find that many applicants - most likely because they are not legit SA/ESA, use many terms interchangeably.

"I have a support animal".

"I have a service dog providing emotional support".

"I have 2 dogs and 2 cats, all providing support and services".

In these cases where you are not even sure what type it is, how far can a landlord inquire about the animal and what it does to the applicant without crossing any lines.

I have often heard that for a service animal, the only questions one can ask are limited to (a) whether it's needed due to a disability and (b) what task is the animal been trained to perform.  That's it, and those two questions can only be asked when the disability or need is not obvious.  The rules are explicit, you "cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task".  This is directly from the ADA web site.  But this is ADA, which covers public facilities like hotels, restaurants, libraries, stadiums etc...it doesn't govern rental properties.

Yet HUD grouped SA and ESA into one class and does not seem to address the fact that SA and ESA are very different - a seeing eye dog is a true need and is trained to provide such service, an ESA is untrained and 99% of the time is a stun to get into pet free housing. Do we as landlords need to treat the two groups of animals differently because HUD doesn't?

Specifically. do you adhere to the ADA's service animal guidelines because HUD doesn't have one - as far as what you can and cannot ask just to be on the safe side?

I see many landlords ask for ESA documentation such as a verifiable actively licensed MHCP's prescription for the ESA, myself included. I kept wondering if this is allowed by HUD for all assistance animals, does it mean we are allowed to ask for medical documentation if an applicant claim to have a service dog and it's not obvious to us why, and would like to see documentation?

I have a tenant who was once sitting on top of the washer when I visited the property.  He said he had to sit on top during the wash or the washer would walk or bounce around.  I opened the lid and the washer was filled with clothes to the point the lid wouldn't close all the way.  He packed the washer like he packed a suitcase.

i mentioned to him that the clothes should not be more than half way full in the washer and needs to be loose, or it would bounce around because it's overloaded and go off balance, furthermore it would not give him clean clothes.

He didn't believe me, said he has always done this.

He came with his mom during the showing.

He was 39 years old.