Emotional Support Animals
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Time to learn more about HUD’s new animal accommodation guidance
On April 14 at 2:00 p.m. CST I’ll be presenting a one hour webinar on HUD’s January 2020 guidance on reasonable accommodations for animals. I’ll cover what HUD got right and wrong in this guidance and explain what housing providers need to know about the reasonable accommodation process in light of the guidance. Written materials Continue reading
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HUD’s new Guidance on assistance animals will encourage emotional support animal fraud.
On January 28, 2020 HUD issued its “Guidance on Reasonable Accommodations under the Fair Housing Act Relating to Assistance Animals.”† Over the course of 19 poorly written and poorly organized pages HUD provides one crumb of help for housing providers faced with bogus requests for emotional support animals. The bulk of the “Guidance” is a Continue reading
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DOT enforcement policy for “service animals” still doesn’t get it.
On August 9 the Department of Transportation issued its “Final Statement of Enforcement Priorities Regarding Service Animals” based on the Air Carrier Access Act and existing regulations. New regulations are on the way, but probably not any time soon,* so this Final Statement, which replaces an Interim Statement issued in May of 2018, is the Continue reading
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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – a new ADA and FHA webinar
Next Friday, May 3, I’m going to be presenting a webinar explaining how the FHA, ADA and ACAA treat animals of all kinds. Here’s the official link from the University of Texas School of Law CLE program. Live from the UT CLE Studio on May 3, 2019 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 1.00 hour CLE, Continue reading
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Emotional Support Animal scams – good news from the Eastern District of Texas
The October 17, 2017 decision by Judge Amos Mazzant of the Eastern District of Texas in Houston v. DTN Operating Company et al., 2017 WL 4653246 (E.D.Tex 2017) is good news for landlords confronted by bogus internet diagnoses of disability. There is a vexing lack of authority concerning just what constitutes sufficient evidence of a disability Continue reading

