What are Emotional Support Animal Laws?

Emotional support animal laws allow you to have your ESA at your residence.

Emotional support animal housing laws require the landlord to make appropriate accommodations in the policies to make room for your pet. Though these changes do take place most of the time, there are some cases where ESA laws might not help. These include:

• If the building is lesser than four units and the landlord is also residing in the same building.
• If the property does not involve a real estate broker and is included under single-family housing.
• The FHA doesn’t allow access to animals in public places like restaurants, cafes or hotels and will probably refuse to allow your ESA. Service animals can be allowed sometimes according to the American Disability Act.

The FHA, a federal emotional support animal housing law, restricts the landlords from doing the following:

• Landlords cannot request you for your detailed medical records or ask about your medical condition.
• They cannot ask about your ESA’s training or its performance in certain tasks like service animals.
• Also can’t demand any fees or deposit for accommodating for your emotional support animal.
• Lastly, they cannot refuse your admission on the accounts that their insurance doesn’t cover a breed or animal weight.

Verification May Be Required by Property Managers

The FHA allows a landlord to accept an ESA letter from a certified mental health professional. Additionally, he also may ask for a short verification form from a therapist or physician confirming your emotional disability.

The ESA dog laws require the landlord to make reasonable accommodations in the rules to let the tenants live with their ESA despite him not wanting to let tenants live with their emotional support animals.

Let’s go through an example of how Fair Housing ESA laws apply.

Joseph has been recently diagnosed with severe PTSD. He is regarded as disabled as defined by the Fair Housing Act. He wishes to exercise his rights under emotional support dog laws and visits myesadoctor.com.

Our medical health professional recommends Joseph a dog to help alleviate some of his symptoms. He then asks his landlord if he can have a dog as a reasonable accommodation for his disability. His landlord agrees but asks him to pay a $200 pet deposit and provide proof about the dog’s training.

Did Joseph’s landlord correctly handle Joseph’s request under emotional support animal housing laws, What if Joseph wanted a rabbit or a cat instead of a dog? Should training be a criterion?

No, Joseph’s landlord failed to handle the request correctly. The landlord cannot charge him with a pet deposit for his ESA because it is not a pet, but rather an emotional support dog by law and is medically required for his emotional condition. Furthermore, the landlord cannot ask for any kind of proof that the animal is trained.

Lastly, emotional support animals need not necessary be dogs; they can also be other animals, such as cats or rabbits and various other species.

If the landlord refuses, then

According to federal ESA animal laws, if anyone fails to comply to accommodate an emotionally impaired individual, he can be sued and booked for violation. This can be taken as discrimination against the disabled which is taken very seriously by the U.S Justice Department.

Generally, people fail to comply with the ESA dog laws because they are unaware of their existence. Although if any tenant feels to have suffered discrimination from their landlord, they can report him to the U.S. Justice Department.

These laws are not subjected to just dogs but cover all other pets that qualify for an emotional support animal.