Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog
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Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog
Archive of: Assistance Animals
HUD Issues It's Guidance Memo Regarding How To Evaluate A Tenant/Applicant's Request for An Assistance Animal But Fails to Provide Much Clarity
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Assistance Animals / Comments
On January 28, 2020 HUD published its Memorandum/Notice on how best to assess a tenant/applicant’s request to keep an assistance animal as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act. You can find the entire memorandum here. HUD had been promising for months to publish a notice/memorandum that would provide landlords with some clarity when it came to health care provider letters purchased online to support a tenant’s request to ...
Read MoreWhat Is The Difference Between A Service Animal, An Emotional Support Animal, A Comfort Animal, A Companion Animal, and a Therapy Animal?
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Fair Housing / Discrimination, Assistance Animals, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments
There is much confusion regarding the difference between the various terms used for assistance animals. Landlords, tenants, tenant's health care providers, lawyers and even the courts are often confused when it comes to this issue. Hopefully this blog post will help.I often use the generic term "assistance animal" to refer to any animal that is prescribed for a tenant to assist him or her in some way. ...
Read MoreLandlords Should Create and Implement A Reasonable Accommodation Request Process
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Reasonable Accommodations, Assistance Animals, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments
With more and more tenants making reasonable accommodation requests to keep assistance animals in their apartments, it is important for landlords to create a policy and process to handle such requests when they arise. As background, a reasonable accommodation request is a request from a person with a disability to a landlord asking that the landlord modify his/her policies, practices or procedures to accommodate the disabled person so that s/he ...
Read MoreCan A Landlord Deny A Reasonable Accommodation Request For A Pit Bull Companion Animal?
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Fair Housing / Discrimination, Assistance Animals, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments
As I have mentioned in a prior blog post I have seen a significant increase in tenant requests for a reasonable accommodation to a landlord's "no pet" policy so that the tenant can keep a comfort/companion animal. As a result of this increase, I am also seeing an increase in reasonable accommodation requests to keep what are often referred to as "dangerous breeds" of dogs -- such as Pit ...
Read MoreHUD Issues Notice on Assistance Animals and Reasonable Accommodations For Persons with Disabilities
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Reasonable Accommodations, Assistance Animals, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments
Today the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a notice on assistance animals and reasonable accomodations for persons with disabilities.Not to long ago I wrote a post that dealt with this subject. HUD's new notice also adds clarifying information to that post.Disability-related complaints, including those that involve assistance animals, are the most common discrimination complaint that HUD receives per John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary ...
Read MoreSo Let's Talk About . . . Companion/Comfort Animals In Rental Properties
Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in Fair Housing / Discrimination, State of Wisconsin, Reasonable Accommodations, Assistance Animals, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments
I have been promising that I would blog about this topic for months (could it possibly be over a year even) and the time has finally come. So let's talk about companion/comfort animals in rental properties.Background:I will use the terms comfort animals and companion animals interchangeably throughout this post.So we are all on the “same page" a companion animal is an animal ...
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