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Tristan’s Landlord-Tenant Law Blog

Archive of: Companion/Comfort Animals

What 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. ...

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Landlords 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 ...

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Can 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 ...

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AASEW MEETING: "Companion Animals - When A Landlord Must Accept Them" on August 18, 2014

Posted by Tristan R. Pettit, Esq. in AASEW, Fair Housing / Discrimination, Seminars, Companion/Comfort Animals / Comments

I will be speaking at the AASEW's monthly meeting on the issue of companion/comfort animals and when a landlord must accept them in their rental properties.Disability-related complaints, including those that involve assistance animals, are the most common complaint filed with HUD over the past few years. While the definition of a "service animal" under the ADA is very limited and requires that the animal be specifically trained (and excludes ...

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HUD 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 ...

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So 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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