Can A Condo Require Me To Provide A Doctors Note For My Service Animal

Service animals cannot exist restricted, and in that location are ways to get the board to allow a condolement pet. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Your condominium rules prohibit pets of any kind except fish and birds. A unit of measurement owner asks the board of directors to allow them to continue a dog because they demand the condolement the animal gives them. What should the lath do?

First, the lath has to understand the difference between a "service" animal and a "comfort" or "emotional support" animate being. I use the word animate being, because in that location are more than dogs in this category. The list includes pigs, parrots, cats, ducks, and yes, even a turkey that final year had to be given a seat on a Delta air flight.

A service animal, such every bit a guide canis familiaris, is trained to do a specific task. Non even a condominium can prohibit such an animal because the owner has to rely on information technology everywhere. Information technology is non a pet.

A comfort, help or emotional support animal falls into a different category. According to the Humane Society, such an animal "does non need to be trained to perform a service. The emotional and/or physical benefits from the animal living in the home are what qualify the beast equally an assistance creature."

While the Americans With Disabilities Act does not generally employ to many community associations, the Fair Housing Act does. Oversimplified, the Off-white Housing Act requires the housing provider, including condos, to make "reasonable accommodations" to a request for such a comfort animal.

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Typically, if the owner seeking such an fauna provides a letter from a doctor or a therapist stating the inability and the need for the comfort that brute will provide, the legal requirement of making a "reasonable accommodation" will exist satisfied.

Sounds piece of cake? In fact, it'due south too easy to get such a letter. Look on the Net for "emotional back up animals." For $99, you tin can get the necessary letter of the alphabet within 24 hours. Imagine being diagnosed in less than one 24-hour interval that you have such a burning need for that pig or duck to proceed you happy. If it quacks like a duck, that'southward exactly what it is: a "dishonest."

In fact, I recently heard that 1 of these "trained professionals" issued a letter authorizing the condo owner to take two pets: ane to comfort the possessor and the second to comfort the poor depressed animal that was supposed to comfort the owner.

Condo boards have a major trouble when faced with a asking to allow such a condolement animal. The Fair Housing Human action makes it very clear: They are "prohibited from discriminating against . . . [owners or even tenants] because of their disability or the disability of anyone associated with them." The act goes on to prohibit the lath from refusing "to brand reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a person with a disability the equal opportunity to use and bask a home."

A recent case handed down by the D.C. Court of Appeals — Welsh v. McNeil, decided June 29 — summarized the law. For the unit of measurement possessor or the tenant to have a case for violating the Fair Housing Act, "he must show (ane) that he suffered from a inability; (2) the landlord knew or should accept known of the disability; (iii) an accommodation of the inability is necessary . . . to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the premises in question, (4) the tenant requested a reasonable adaptation, and (5) the landlord refused." Although that example did not involve comfort animals, the requirements are applicable for all Fair Housing Human action cases whether involving a landlord or a customs association.

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According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which enforces the law, in 2016 alone, the agency completed more 8,300 investigations, of which some 40 percentage involved a housing provider's failure to provide "reasonable adaptation."

Although most of these cases did not involve comfort or service animals, the fact remains that HUD has the dominance to investigate and issue fines.

Unit owners who are faced with discrimination have two remedies: have the association to court or file a complaint with the local HUD office. Clearly, the latter is much less expensive.

Accordingly, condo boards and their holding managers are well aware of the ramifications of not making a "reasonable accommodation." Nevertheless, this does non mean the board has to allow the animal just because the possessor or the tenant has 1 of these letters stating the importance of such an beast.

First, the lath tin can — and should — carefully examine the facts. If the request is for a service creature, unless is information technology absolutely clear it is a sham (a board fellow member saw the alleged blind person driving alone in a motorcar which was not a self-driving i) the asking must be honored. And even then, what one may remember is a "service' animal, may actually be claimed as a comfort animal.

Next, the board should advisedly analyze the alphabetic character from the alleged professional person. Ostend it is legitimate. Did the owner run across with the alphabetic character writer or was information technology merely one of those $99 specials?

Last, the board tin impose reasonable requirements, like to what all other animate being owners in the condo accept to follow. It must be registered, and the owner should become an animal license from the local government. The animal must be on a ternion at all times on common belongings.

The owner must make clean upwardly after the brute. If there are special zones in the property for utilise past animals, those must be used exclusively. And last, if the creature is causing a disturbance or a nuisance for other owners, the lath should address the trouble by holding a hearing and possibly fining the owner.

But, in the final analysis, boards should be wary of imposing too many requirements or too many hurdles for the owner seeking that comfort brute. This is a highly emotional issue for many people, and easy to seek guidance — and enforcement — from HUD.

The association may take to spend a lot of money defending itself, and, in fact, tin can be fined past the enforcement agency. My communication to all boards: Interruption before denying the asking for a comfort animal.

Benny L. Kass is a Washington and Maryland lawyer. This column is not legal advice and should not be acted upon without obtaining legal counsel. Send questions to blkass@kmklawyers.com.

Can A Condo Require Me To Provide A Doctors Note For My Service Animal,

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/your-condo-association-prohibits-pets-but-you-need-a-comfort-animal-what-do-you-do/2017/08/09/d2e790ba-721c-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html

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