assistance 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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“Dwellings” and discrimination under the Fair Housing Act
Sanzaro v. Ardiente Homeowners Ass. et al, 2:11-cv-01143-RFB, 2017 WL 5895133 (D. Nevada June 29, 2017) asks whether the clubhouse in a planned development is a “dwelling” for purposes of the Fair Housing Act. The Court doesn’t answer the question, but is one worth thinking about when trying to decide how the idea of disability discrimination applies 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
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Emotional Support Animals – Just say “NO” to bogus ESA letters.
Apartment owners and managers are familiar with the internet industry providing junk disability letters for pet owners. You only have to go to the web to find a dozen or more places that will sell a letter from some kind of alleged therapist certifying that you are disabled and your pet cat, koala or kangaroo is a Continue reading
