Animals
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Fighting fake ESA’s – Guidance on what constitutes reliable evidence of disability
This week’s news is a year old, but very important for apartment owners and managers confronted by the increasing flood of fake emotional support animal requests.* In March of 2017 the Virginia Fair Housing Board, which carries out Virginia’s mandate for disability rights in housing, issued a formal guidance on what constitutes reliable evidence of Continue reading
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Good News – the defense lost in an FHA pet deposit case.
On May 17 a jury in the District of Montana found that a landlord violated the Fair Housing Act by requiring a pet deposit from a disabled tenant and awarded damages of almost $40,000. (U.S. v. Katz et al, Case No. 14-68). Why is this good news for landlords? Because there was a jury trial, Continue reading
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Hunt article published in The National Psychologist
The National Psychologist’s January/February 2017 edition includes Richard’s article “What is a disability, anyway?” The article explains for mental health professionals why caution is needed in diagnosing a “disability” when the term has a legal, rather than a medical, meaning. You can read the full text of the article at The National Psychologist online edition. Those Continue reading
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Pushing the needle too far – an instructive Fair Housing case.
Nobody likes fake Emotional Support Animal letters, but a recent DOJ consent decree should remind apartment owners that reasonable verification of a disability can spill over into unreasonable discriminatory demands. The DOJ press release, and a link to the decree, can be found HERE. The apartment managers’ sin was requiring that an individual claiming to Continue reading
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Doing it wrong with support animal requests – a lesson in reasonable accommodation from HUD
Just after posting yesterday’s blog on the perils of being ignorant in FHA matters I received a copy of a recent charge of discrimination showing how reasonable accommodation can be done wrong. You can read the complaint here. The facts as presented in the charge show that the landlord made three important mistakes when refusing a request for a Continue reading
