Legal Compliance for Landlords:
From ADA to ESA

Krista Reuther:

We are here to talk about ADA and ESA compliance. Now, if you’re unfamiliar, the ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act. ESA means Emotional Support Animals. We’re also going to be covering service animals today, really run in the gambit. The way that this chat is possible is really thanks to the expertise of my co-host, Chris Smith. Now, Chris is a landlord. He has a wealth of experience. Would you like to say any words about that experience to the people, Chris? Sure.

Chris Smith:

I am actually an ADA coordinator as well. If for those of you that know the ADA, I work in Title II, which is state and local government. Then yes, I do own rental properties as well. I play in both spaces. I understand the idea of a service animal and also Emotional Support Animals pretty well. This is the ballpark I play in every day.

Krista Reuther:

Love it. We’re so lucky to have you. Cannot wait to hop in. We’re going to cover quite a variety of topics today, but the key takeaways that you’re going to learn, you’re going to understand the difference between the ADA and the Fair Housing Act or the FHA. Both of those come into play, although differently and we’ll get into how that works. We’re also going to teach you how to determine reasonableness when it comes to modification requests, questions to ask, systems to have in place, etc. Of course, you’re going to leave here today understanding how to validate Emotional Support Animals and service animals while staying legally compliant and protecting your business. Sound good?

I’m assuming all of you are saying, yes, Krista, so long. We’re going to start off with the heavy hitters, which are of course the laws and how they impact you as landlords. Brief history lesson, the ADA became a civil rights law in 1990.

Again, that’s the Americans with Disabilities Act, and it prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. One quick note on language that we’re going to use today. So we’re using person-first language wherever possible. That means we’re saying people with disabilities, individuals with disabilities, tenants with disabilities, etc.

It’s a respectful way to have a conversation. Also, I am a disabled woman myself, so if I transpose the words, I hope you’ll forgive me, but this is the space that I play in every day. Thus, this is how I talk about this kind of situation. But it’s really important to be thoughtful with how we are communicating when we are talking about disabilities, because there’s a lot that goes into that kind of conversation.

With that in mind, the purpose of the ADA is to ensure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everybody else. Pretty straightforward. But in practice, you might be wondering, well, how does that come up? What is a disability? We have a non-exhaustive list here, but here are some common disabilities from Apartment Guide. So it could be hearing and speech disabilities, chronic illnesses like diabetes could be a disability, you’ve got cancer, epilepsy. Anything that impacts your intellectual abilities is a disability. If we have partial or completely missing limbs or any kind of mobility impairments, these all can be considered disabilities that might pop up with your tenants. So really the act is prohibiting discrimination against people with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits or one or more major life activities. That’s how you can define a disability. But don’t feel like you need to define your tenants’ disabilities.

That’ll be a recurring theme that we talk about today. So does the ADA apply to landlords? In part, right?

And that can be really confusing. So commercial property landlords think people who own retail spaces or industrial spaces, they are required to enable reasonable access for people with disabilities according to the ADA. However, service animals are protected by the ADA and that can obviously come into play with residential landlords. At the same time, residential landlords have to follow the FHA or the Fair Housing Act, and emotional support animals specifically fall under this category.

So you can see where it starts to get a little bit complicated, but again, if we just keep it really straightforward, you’ll understand the split. You might be asking, well, what’s the FHA? As I mentioned, it is the Fair Housing Act. Now, this is a federal law that was passed back in 1968. It was actually passed as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So it’s building upon that original act. And it prohibits discrimination in housing based on seven protected classes, which I have listed here. Now, some states have additional protected classes, like here in Colorado, marital status, veteran status, and source of income are also protected.

So it’s really important that you know your local landlord tenant laws so that you can run your business in compliance with everything you got going on. When you get this deck, you’ll be able to click on this link. It will take you to our wonderful resource, wonderful resource. I talk all the time. I’m a professional.

Don’t worry. But it’ll take you to a wonderful resource, which is a great starting off point to do your research about your local laws. But I would always encourage you to find your .gov website. That’s going to be a government-sponsored website that outlines all of the rules for your specific state and locality.

Because some places, like Cook County in Illinois, comes to mind, have their own rules that are different than the surrounding area. So make sure you do your due diligence and look at everything. So how are you most likely to interact with the Fair Housing Act?

It’s going to most often pop up in one of these three situations, when you’re screening tenants, when you’re signing a lease, and of course, if you get requests for rental modification or accommodations. So let’s talk about that. First, let me just pop open the chat and see if there are any questions that are pertinent to this particular section. Okay, it looks like our wonderful Jonathan behind the scenes has been asking, excuse me, answering questions. So keep them coming, but we’re going to go ahead and move on since we don’t have anything quite yet. These two that are in there though, we will cover at the end. So stick around.

All right. So accommodations versus modifications. The words sound very similar.

They are of course different. So let’s jump into accommodations first. According to HUD, accommodations are going to be like changes, exceptions, or adjustments to a rule, policy, practice, or service.

Okay. So a reasonable accommodation is going to be something that makes it possible for a person with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including public and common use spaces, or to fulfill their program obligations. With that in mind, landlords cannot ask people with disabilities to pay extra fees or deposits, nor can they require specific or special conditions to be fulfilled that they wouldn’t require of everyone else.

That doesn’t mean you can’t validate a request and we’ll get into that, but it is something to keep in mind. You wouldn’t be able to penalize someone because they made an accommodation request. And accommodations are generally paid for by the landlord. So with that in mind, we do have a few examples of accommodations that you can consider here. For example, if you need to provide earlier notice for inspections or repairs to make sure that an ASL interpreter can be present.

If you’re not familiar, ASL is shorthand for American Sign Language. So if you have a deaf tenant, they probably want someone there to make sure that they understand what’s going on and are kept in the loop, right? Just like any other tenant would want to be kept in the loop. Also, adjusting guest policies to enable at-home care could be an accommodation, making sure that you have leasing documents written in Braille for the blind, and changing the due date for rent after, so it comes after the receipt of a Social Security Disability Check could be an accommodation example. Chris, do you have any other accommodation examples you’d like to share?

Chris Smith:

Actually, I thought you provided some pretty good ones. Hey. I mean, there’s a lot of things that you can get requests for. And these are actually some really good examples.

The due dates, those are good ones that you can change that aren’t going to be a major impact on your business, but still make it so that somebody can live in your place. Beautiful.

Krista Reuther:

And that’s exactly it. You want to make it as accessible to them as possible. It doesn’t mean that you need to put yourself out of business to make it happen, and we’ll touch on that.

But again, doing what you can to give them the same experience as anyone else is really at the heart of these rules. So, I have another little poll question for you. How many times have tenants requested accommodations for your rental or rentals? I’m talking the whole span of your career. If you can think about it, try and tally it up. Chris, if you had to tally it up, and I know this isn’t as common for you as what we’re going to touch on later, but where would you fall in these buckets? How many times do you think you’ve gotten accommodation requests?

Chris Smith:

I’ve gotten some for physical disabilities. I have a unit that is a ground floor. So, I can’t use it excessively. I have the wider doors. I have the rails in the shower, things like that. And that unit actually does have those already built into it. So, I’ve had some few for that, but outside of the ESA service animal space, I haven’t had very many.

Krista Reuther:

It makes sense. It’s definitely one of those things that you want to understand the lay of the law, preferably before a request comes up, so you feel really confident in handling it. But even if you’ve had requests come up, I hope you can learn something to do next time that maybe makes it easier for you. Go ahead and share these results. It’s really interesting. 99% of you have never had an accommodation request, which pretty much fits in line with what Chris was sharing, where he gets some, but not as many as perhaps ESAs, which we’ll touch on later. But we do have a few people who say that they’ve had 26 or more, which, wow, that’s incredible. Feel free to share your experiences in the chat, what was requested, how it turned out, but we’re going to go ahead and continue tracking along. So, we’ve talked about accommodations. Now, let’s talk about modifications. Modifications, according to HUD, which is the, oh, I always get this, it is the Department of Human Urban Development. Right, Chris? You know. Yeah, all right.

Chris Smith:

Even an urban, or housing and urban development.

Krista Reuther:

There we go. Beautiful. So, they are the big wigs behind many of the different laws that impact landlords specifically, like the Fair Housing Act, it all goes through HUD. So, with that, what they say about modifications are that modifications are structural changes that need to be made to the existing premise in order to enable a tenant with disabilities to fully enjoy the premises. So, that could include updates to the interior or the exterior of the unit and updates to common use or public use places.

Right. So, if you have, like, a pool area, for example, that all of your tenants share, that is a space that might require modification for all of your tenants to be able to access it equally. Landlords cannot refuse to allow a reasonable accommodation. However, modifications cannot cause the landlord undue burden or a fundamental alteration of the rental. So, modifications are typically paid for by the tenant unless the housing provider receives federal financial assistance.

Okay. So, it gets a little bit murky if, let’s say, you’re in a housing choice voucher program, you’d want to make sure that you’re talking to your local HUD office and understanding and your local PHA, which if you’re in the program, you’ll know what that is. If you’re like, Christa, that’s a lot of acronyms. Please go check out our Section 8 webinar. You can find it on TurboTenant.com slash education slash webinars, or Jonathan might drop it in the chat if we ask really nicely. Don’t watch it right now, though.

You’re busy watching me live, so don’t run away. But that is a great resource if you want to learn more about that program. Getting back to modifications.

Landlords can require interior modifications to be removed or otherwise the rental to be returned to its original condition upon move out. All right. This is a lot to keep in mind. So let’s get into some examples of modifications. You might be asked if a ramp can be installed or to have grab bars added to the bathroom. If you have someone hard of hearing like myself, they might require a visual CO2 or smoke detector. So it’s something that often uses a bright light versus the sound that would be inaccessible to keep them safe. Another possible modification would be updating the flooring to be more crutch friendly.

For example, having linoleum changed over to carpeting. Now that last one is a particularly great example from our friend Chris. Any others that popped to mind after looking at this list?

Chris Smith:

I mean, there was a question that was asked in the Q &A about like an elevator. Requiring an elevator to be installed. I mean, that would depend a lot on local housing codes. It would depend a lot on how many units you have. For someone like me, I have a handful of units and installing an elevator is not going to work. I mean, those are expensive.

It would be unreasonable for me to do that. But letting the tenant install a ramp or a lot of times they want to put in grab bars in the showers, things like that. And a lot of interesting things is those things can often remain. They’re not a hindrance to the next tenant.

Your example, the CO2, is for detectors with the visual aspect. If the tenant wanted to put one of those in, I would gladly let them put it in. And then if they wanted to leave it when they left, absolutely. I mean, why not?

Krista Reuther:

Yeah, I love that. Why not? That’s a pretty nice one. Because again, if someone else needs it in the future, you’ve got it right there. It’s really great. Okay, I know we’ve got some fantastic questions going on in the chat, in the Q &A. I will definitely pause at the end of this section to hit on those. But I’m going to go ahead and tackle one of the next hardest topics, one of which is actually a question that I’m seeing repeated, which is what is reasonable? Reasonableness is tricky, right? So reasonable in the context of housing modifications for tenants with disabilities is complex because there are a lot of factors to consider.

We’ve outlined a lot of them here, right? So the first is the effectiveness of the accommodation. So the accommodation or the modification must be necessary for the tenant to have equal opportunity to use and enjoy the housing. So this includes accessing and moving throughout the unit, using common areas and performing daily activities. Think about the grab bars in the shower, for example.

That is necessary for some folks to be able to take showers and maintain their independence on their own. So it’s a pretty easy yes, right? Another factor you should consider are your financial resources. So the modification or accommodation should be feasible and not pose an undue burden on the landlord. So this considers costs, safety implications, and potential damage to the property.

For example, if I was a tenant and I went to my landlord and I lived on the third floor of a building and I said, my legs hurt when I go downstairs and I have a disability that makes that true, right? I need you to install a slide from my window to the ground floor. That would be very unsafe. It would not be reasonable. That would not be a request that the landlord has to fill. Okay, so it’s important to consider the impact on your business and on the unit when you’re going through determining something is reasonable or not. That leads in beautifully to our third point, which is of course the impact on the property. The modification or accommodation should be minimally invasive and not alter the essential character of the dwelling or common areas.

It should also prioritize reversible changes when possible, particularly for modifications. You’re also going to want to consider the tenant’s circumstances. So each person’s circumstance is unique.

The tenant’s specific disability, its severity, and their needs are crucial in determining reasonableness. Lastly here, consider the follow-up or alternatives, right? So if a requested modification isn’t considered reasonable, are you providing alternative solutions that could achieve the same accessibility goal? Okay.

So really, you just want to make sure that you are doing your due diligence and again, we will hit on this in further detail, but it would not be appropriate to just turn someone away without attempting to find a solution.

Chris Smith:

So one thing that I want to add to that that’s really important is that each one of them is done on an individual basis. So even if you’ve evaluated, for example, something like an elevator once, it doesn’t mean you’re going to automatically deny an elevator the second time.

You’re still going to go back and reevaluate that based on the circumstances like you just said. The effectiveness of financial resources, impact on the property, is it going to help the person? Every single one should include that documentation of everything you went through for each case, even if it’s the exact same request.

Krista Reuther:

Yes, that’s so important. Thank you for bringing that up. You’re going to want to make sure you are trying every single time a request comes up to go through, right?

Not even try it. You want to make sure that you are hitting these points and you are doing your due diligence just in case it comes to a HUD complaint or something of that nature. So you can show, no, I examine this.

Here’s all the documentation to support it. You’ll be in a better spot and protect your business. Thanks for that note, Chris. Yep. All right. Now, if you haven’t been to one of my webinars before, maybe you don’t know that I love making you guys play games with me. And this one is a game called Is This Reasonable?

We’re going to go through three rounds. I’m going to give you a situation. And then I want you to vote in the chat if you think it’s a reasonable request or not. Okay. So here’s the situation. Your parking policy is first come, first served, but Tina, the tenant, has a mobility impairment. So Tina has requested an assigned accessible parking space close to the entrance of her unit. Is this reasonable?

I’m going to go ahead and open the chat here. We’ve got folks saying yes, yes, reasonable, reasonable. Lots of reasonable. So one said reasonable. If there’s more than one spot reasonable, yes. All right.

Beautiful. You guys are okay. Savannah said no.

Savannah, I hate to call you out, but that’s wrong. This is a reasonable request, right? Because it is not causing you an undue burden. You are basically just saying, hey, this parking spot is available. I’m going to make sure that it is always available to Tina so she can have access to her unit safely. So this would be a great accommodation. You are going to make an exception to your parking policy to accommodate Tina and she’ll be happy. You’ll be happy.

You’ll be compliant with HUD, which is and the ADA, which is great. Okay. Round two. I forgot I put animation in there. Round two. So you require all your tenants to pay rent online through TurboTenet.

Aren’t you just a peach? But Talia has a mental disability that makes her afraid of using the internet. I know we might be inclined to laugh at that, but it’s a real situation that happens and we got to take it seriously. So the request is that Talia wants to be allowed to pay rent and cash despite the risks of accepting cash payments. Is this reasonable? Chat is popping off saying yes, yes, depends. Yes, yes, not in cash, but with the money order. Yes, yes, that is reasonable, but I would offer different options.

Yes, yes, not if you are not local and have no local representative. Interesting answer, Patty. Yes. All right.

That’s my drum note drum nose drum roll sound. Yeah, this is a reasonable request. Now you could work with Talia and see if there’s a different solution. Money orders were mentioned in the chat, but allowing her to pay in a different form is a reasonable request. Okay. Because you’re still getting the money that you need.

She is being able to pay you, but she’s doing it in a way that aligns with her disability. Bunky and fun, huh? Also, once we send this out, you can learn more about the risks of accepting cash payments.

We don’t have to touch on it here, but it’s something that I’m passionate about. So worth checking out. We have arrived at the final round. It is round three.

The points don’t matter, but we’re going to do it anyway. So situation. Tim the tenant is physically unable to open the dumpster in the parking lot by his unit due to his disability. You have a maintenance worker, just one, and they come by once a week to empty out that trash. So Tim requests that the maintenance worker come to his unit four times per week to remove trash that he doesn’t go out to that unaccessible. Okay.

Is this reasonable? See, no, no, no, no. Uh, city should have a system there. No, no, let’s figure something else out. I love that answer. Brian, great answer.

Yeah, you guys are smart cookies. This would not be considered a reasonable request. Why is that? Well, because your rental management sounds like a small operation, you have limited financial resources and you only have the maintenance worker hired to come on site once per week. So this request could pose an undue financial burden on you. What you would do instead, rather than just say, no, Tim, live with trash.

You could offer to place an open trash collection can somewhere that’s readily accessible for them, and then ask the maintenance worker to transport the trash from that location once they’re on site one time per week. Okay.

Chris Smith:

This one’s going to depend a lot too on that. Totality of the circumstances. If you have a small city units and that guy really comes by once a week, that’s going to be a lot different than if you had a huge complex and there’s somebody on site.

Krista Reuther:

Absolutely. Again, that’s why you have to consider all of these different factors in conjunction with every individual request. So what happens when you need to deny Tim or someone else their modification? We’ve said it before.

I’ll say it again. You need to make sure you do your due diligence, which means here you have to be able to prove that concerted efforts were made to research and enable the modification. Maybe that means calling to get a quote for how much it would cost to have your maintenance person show up more often, right? If you’re a small operation. Again, it doesn’t mean you need to pursue that quote, but having that documentation saying, oh, this would really hurt my business because I’m smaller.

I don’t have this kind of revenue to shell out here. That is okay. Just make sure that you have your documents in a row, right? So as I said, gather quotes as applicable for fulfilling the request and make sure that you write out how the modification would fundamentally change your business if that’s applicable, right? Sometimes it won’t be, but if you get a request that is going to fundamentally make it so that it’s not a rental anymore. Let’s say that, hmm, Chris, do you have a good example of this? Like a request that would come in and fundamentally change the business. Kind of a hard one. Right.

Chris Smith:

Have examples in the professional world, but I don’t really have a lot of examples in the housing world. I’m pondering if I come up with one.

Krista Reuther:

Beautiful. Beautiful. This might be a stretch, but if let’s say someone said, well, I have this disability and it makes me, I’m agoraphobic, right? Like I do, I cannot go outside.

It’s part of my mental disability. So I need to have a greenhouse built into my unit. That would be both likely a big cost, an undue burden via cost, but then if they also said, and I need you to hire a gardener to come in here and manage it, that would then no longer exactly be a rental agreement between you two.

It’d be into a nebulous gray area. Now, are you going to get a request like that? Probably not because I just made it up and it took me a second, but still, it’s important to keep in mind when these requests come in exactly how it would impact your business and what you can do to try and mitigate that.

Right. And you want to make sure that you’re communicating this information to your tenant. So do your due diligence, of course, have it all written out, but let them know, especially as you propose a different solution that you’ve done your work, that you’re trying to work with them.

Chris Smith:

I was going to throw something in there because I’ve been watching the chat goes as you’ve been talking, and there’s a lot of questions based on, you know, what is there a legal precedence for what is a financial burden and those kinds of things. We really got to think about what’s reasonable given your totality of the circumstances, right? It’s going to vary a lot between a lot of different people, a lot of different organizations.

What’s reasonable for somebody who’s a small mom and pop type of landlord that only has a handful of units compared to somebody or an organization, you know, that has hundreds and hundreds across the country is going to be different. And that’s okay. And the laws designed to recognize that there are differences. And there’s differences between a high raise, you know, somebody who wants something done on the 25th floor versus a single family out in the country. And things are going to be very different between those. The key is, again, that individual assessment and then documenting the why.

Krista Reuther:

Brilliantly said, and it might even change from property to property, right? If you have a family versus a single family, like, it’s all about that totality, totality of the circumstances. Thank you very much. This is why I’ve got it. All right. And to that end, as you investigate these different requests, make sure that you are being consistent.

That is crucial. I need you to create a process using this deck and make sure that you stick to it for every single request that comes in every time a request comes in. Okay. That is the best way to protect yourself because you’re doing the work you are trying to be accommodating. And you’re seeing if it can, you know, if it can fit into your unique circumstances, but you need the documentation to back it up just in case. So next up, we’re going to talk about ESAs and service animals, but I do want to check out our Q &A because it is flowing. So let’s see. I know there’s some questions about this. Don’t worry, David, we will get there. But let’s see. Okay. Andy asks, if a wheelchair ramp is being requested and you’d have to build one in, who would be responsible for the ramp installation?

What do you think, Chris? The tenant. Beautiful. Easy, simple. Again, modifications are typically the tenant’s duty to monetize and make happen.

Now they don’t have to be out there actually physically installing the ramp themselves, but they would bring in the person to get the quotes, etc. Okay. We’ve talked about what’s considered an undue burden. And again, that’s going to vary depending on your circumstances, the request, all of that context together.

Do-do-do. Lee asked, we currently don’t install grab bars but allow tenants to hire their own contractor to do so due to the liability. In New York is a grab bar something we’d have to do ourselves. So, Chris, we don’t have, we don’t know New York law.

I’m willing to bet that Chris doesn’t because he’s got his brain wrapped around some other things. However, let’s tackle the question of the grab bar. Is that something that the landlord is typically responsible to install or is that the tenant’s responsibility?

Chris Smith:

The tenant would need to do it. The question is whether the landlord would permit it. And based on your evaluation of the circumstances, I can’t think of one off the top of my head why you wouldn’t, but you would probably more than likely grant the permission to go ahead and install those. But then it’s up to the tenant to figure it out, how they get installed, whether it’s professional or that kind of thing. Beautiful.

Krista Reuther:

All right, Lydia asked, would a tenant be expected to share in the expense of flooring adaptation? Probably in our example of changing over from linoleum to carpeting for better grip.

Chris Smith:

That would be a tenant, I think, if they’re going to change the flooring to accommodate a disability, that would be up to them. Beautiful.

Krista Reuther:

All right. So, modifications are at the tenant’s request and who pays for modification removal when the tenant moves out?

Chris Smith:

Well, so under federal law, the tenant would be required to restore the property back to its original state. I live in Colorado and I can tell you this week they introduced a bill into the state legislature to make it so that you can’t condition the permission to do a modification on restoration.

So it’s going to vary by state, but federal law, it’s up to the tenant to restore it. Well said. So just to be clear on the Colorado one that just got introduced in the state legislature is not a lie yet.

Krista Reuther:

Interesting. Okay. So it’s still time to do your research, call your reps if you need to, but that would be a hot button one, I assume.

Chris Smith:

Right. Well, could you imagine? I mean, somebody brought up in this group that I belong to about it, they’re talking about, you know, well, I just leave the grab bars and I’m like, well, I probably would too. You know, but what if you just installed new carpet and they want to take the carpet out because they can maneuver their wheelchair across the carpeting and so they want to bare floor. And these types of things they may, the landlord may be responsible for putting that back. Yeah, scary thought.

Krista Reuther:

Scary thought. It’ll be interested to see how that one shakes out. All right. Let’s see. Oh, can a request for modifications or accommodations come in after Elise is signed? Absolutely. Things can change.

Chris Smith:

And so the, and there’s a kicker to that too, is you can’t discriminate based on the disability. And so if they don’t disclose it during the application process, that’s okay. It’s just like, you know, similar to employment, they don’t have to disclose a lot of those disabilities while you’re going through the application process.

However, when it comes to ESAs and service animals, that’s one thing that HUD says, you know, if they show up with an animal afterwards and haven’t disclosed it, you know, before that that’s a key that you can kind of use when determining whether it’s a legit emotional support animal or not. Yeah, brilliantly said. All right.

Krista Reuther:

We have a few questions about modifications regarding who’s in charge of paying for them. So just to sum up what we’ve said so far, modifications are generally the tenants responsibility to pay for and to make sure that the unit is restored to its original function, right, or its original condition. Tenants, there are often services where they can get financial support in order to make those modifications.

So if you want to go the extra mile, you could try and point them to some of those or point them to your local 311 line where they could get more information. But modifications are the tenants responsibility. Accommodations, things like changing when your rent is due or otherwise, you know, providing a lease written in Braille. That is the responsibility of the landlord. Okay, accommodations tenant.

Wait, don’t listen to me. Modifications tenant accommodations landlord. Right. Okay. We’ll take a couple more now and then I want to make sure we get everything in here and we’ll come back to the rest. All right. If a disagreement happens between a tenant and a landlord as to what is reasonable, who arbitrates.

Yeah. That’s where that documentation is really going to come into play because if you can demonstrate that you pursued this request, you explored how it would impact your business, how you could implement it and it isn’t reasonable. That is going to help you versus he said she said situation about what was done. So document document document. Debbie, you’re right.

This is about emotional support animals as well. As you can see, we just haven’t gotten there yet. It’s all very intertwined. I appreciate you being here. Okay. Okay.

Yeah, we’ll go ahead and jump into that now. Actually, so let’s talk about ESAs and service animals. I’m going to give you a crash course because if you didn’t know, almost 60% of all FHA complaints are around requests for accommodations for service animals. So it’s a hot button issue and I really want to make sure that you come out of this understanding how to talk about ESAs, what you can ask for, what you can’t ask for, and the difference of course between ESA, a service animal and a pet.

But first, I have a little poll for you. How many times have you had tenants request ESAs? Please let us know. And Chris, I’m curious as to your number here too because I know this one has popped up more for you.

Chris Smith:

So it seems like every single time one of my units goes available that I have at least one potential applicant bring it up. So it happens frequently.

Krista Reuther:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s happening more and more. And there’s a reason for that. You know, there are online services and we’ll touch on this again in a little bit. But there are online services that provide fraudulent ESA letters and they’re pretty easy to access.

There’s not a ton of tenant education out there to explain the proper process that they should take in order to have an ESA. But we’re going to go over all of that in just a minute. I’ll give you three more seconds to go ahead and make your selections in this poll because I am nosy. So looking at this, while we do have a percentage of you who have never had an ESA request, most of you have had at least one. And ooh, a whopping 15% of you have had over 26. So it pays to understand the ins and outs with ESAs and service animals.

You might be like, okay, cool, Krista. So an ESA is a service animal. Wrong.

No. There are distinct differences between ESAs and service animals. Namely, that ESAs are not specifically trained to do a job that their owner can’t perform on their own. ESAs, emotional support animals, provide companionship and emotional care.

Additionally, ESAs are protected by the Fair Housing Act. They do not require specific training as I’ve hit on. And they could be almost any common household animal. You’ve definitely heard stories, and I’ve even told some stories of some interesting animals that have come across as ESAs. But when we are really getting down to the nitty gritty, most often you’re going to see it for like a dog or a cat or some common animal. If someone comes to you and says, hey, Krista and Chris, I have a mini rhinoceros who is my emotional support animal, that would not be a reasonable one.

Chris Smith:

So basically, if you can find it at pet smarter or a place like that, then it’s probably something that would qualify as a common household animal.

Krista Reuther:

Yes, exactly. In contrast, service animals are by the law any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability. If you wanted to cite me on that one, it’s 28 code of federal regulations part 36.104.

Okay. But in regular speak, they are animals who are trained to perform an essential function for their owners who need assistance due to physical, mental or emotional disabilities. But most likely physical or mental. They are given protection by the Fair Housing Act, but also, and more importantly, the ADA. Service animals are rigorously trained. They are by and large dogs because that’s the letter of the law, but they can also be mini horses, which I find hilarious. Chris, we talked a little bit about your theory with why mini horses made it onto this list. Can you share a little bit more about that? Sure.

Chris Smith:

So I don’t know the full actual, you know, reason I have theories as to why it’s on there. The theory being that they live quite a bit longer than a dog does. So you have to train it less frequently.

But then also, just the physical stature of a miniature horse versus a dog, somebody who has a physical disability, and needs to use the animal for physical support, the horse we’ve got better able to support that. That’s my theory. So we’ll see.

Krista Reuther:

It’s better than mine, which is just like horses are nice. I don’t know. But no, so mini horses or dogs, but most typically you’re going to see dogs as service animals. And the work or tasks that they perform must be directly related to the individual’s disability. So for example, there are some dogs who are trained when their owner has a seizure disorder and they are trained to alert the owner to the seizure that is oncoming so they can actually sense it. They are then trained to become a barrier between their person and the floor to make sure that they are not falling and hitting their head. They may also be trained to go and find help and bring someone back to the person having a seizure. Okay, so it’s really intertwined with the disability itself.

Chris Smith:

And everything you just mentioned, though, is a specific training. A dog is trained to do a specific task.

Krista Reuther:

Yes, 3000%. So biggest takeaway. ESA is no training. Okay, service animals, very specific training.

Chris Smith:

Easy way to think about ESA is just merely by their presence. Yes, exactly.

Krista Reuther:

So when it comes to vetting service animals, you are allowed to request documentation that supports their need for the service animal. So typically if somebody has a legit service animal, they already needed to secure a recommendation from their medical provider before they obtained the animal. So they should be able to give you a letter from their doctor, right? There are two questions you can ask. Is your service animal needed due to disability?

What task is it trained to perform? Those are the two. You absolutely, absolutely cannot ask what their disability is or if they’re faking. Not only would that last question be really disrespectful, but it is going to get you in some hot water because, again, so many of the FHA complaints that come in and other types of complaints are related to service animals. So always approach these conversations respectfully.

You don’t have to play sheriff. Your job is just to make sure that this is legit so that you don’t risk your business, but you do not need to validate someone’s disability beyond getting a letter from their doctor. Okay, now you can look at that letter and make sure that it’s a legit letter and that that is an actual provider by looking up their provider number. But again, especially when it comes to service animals, stick with the two questions you can ask. All right.

Chris Smith:

So one other thing you also can’t do is you can’t test. Yes. You can’t ask the owner or the dog to show that they can do those tasks because it’s also, it’s outside of what they’ve been trained to do.

So if they’re trained to detect when a seizure is coming on and the seizure is not coming on and we’re asking them to do those tasks, show us those tasks, it’s outside what it’s been trained to do. Yes.

Krista Reuther:

Very important. No, thank you. Also, I want you to be aware that there are service animal certification sites like the National Service Animal Registry. Do not be fooled by those. There is no national registry of service animals. So it’s really important. I was even mistaken on this. Chris taught me this. So I want to make sure you hit this home. Like you just ask for a letter from their doctor. Make sure you ask these two questions. But if they come back with a certification from somewhere, again, respectfully ask for the letter instead. Right.

Chris Smith:

So there’s no registration. The red vest that you see a lot of service animals in, those aren’t required. A lot of folks choose to use them because people stop asking questions when they see those type of things. But none of that stuff is required. The letters that they can get off the internet, those don’t mean anything either. Those aren’t required. But something, if it’s an obvious disability, even a letter from their doctor is not something that you’re going to want to ask for.

It’s those hidden ones, the ones that you can’t see, the invisible disabilities. Then we can start asking for some sort of documentation that says, hey, this is a legitimate request.

Krista Reuther:

Yes. Thank you for that. I did not mean to move the slide so quickly, but that’s all very valid information.

Chris Smith:

And those letters will be specific to the individual, but not specific to the disability, but what they need. Yeah. Beautifully said.

Krista Reuther:

So you’re going to have a similar procedure when it comes to vetting emotional support animals. Specifically, you can require documentation in the form of an ESA housing letter. So this should be from the tenant’s mental health provider, their doctor, et cetera. And it needs to include how long the tenant has been their patient, why the emotional support animal is necessary, and a signature from the professional, along with their contact information and licensing information. And you can directly request this when you ask the tenant to procure this letter. Let them know that these are the things you’ll be looking for so that they can deliver it to you. Yeah.

Chris Smith:

And I think when looking at those letters too, I mean, do your research, one shows up, you know, and you type it in and it’s obviously one of the internet, you know, registry type things.

You can start asking questions. If you type it in, you know, so we’ll just say that here in Colorado, you know, I have a tenant that’s applying and they’re providers in California, you know, but I can see that, you know, oh, they’re a student maybe, and they’re just here for college, but they’re from California. So you can develop those nexuses between the individual and their provider. But there has to be some level of nexus, some level of actual provider relationship, not just a one-time phone call, you know, to some provider that they’ve never actually had a therapeutic relationship with. But if there’s a nexus with that therapeutic relationship, then I would just take that letter as genuine.

Krista Reuther:

Yes, that’s so important, making sure that there’s a genuine connection between them. It makes sense, right? And that beautifully ties in to how do you verify these documents? So as Chris said, you are very much allowed to ask for the nexus between the tenant and their provider if it’s unclear. So for his example, you know, if they’ve already, if they’ve always lived in Colorado, but their provider operates out of California, you can follow up with a question about how they connected. Maybe it’s a situation, just as he said, where they are here for that they moved or that they used to be there. Or I guess with the wording here, maybe they use one of the online mental health services like Sondermind or BetterHelp, where you might be in different states, but they have an established relationship. That is fair to ask.

Chris Smith:

There’s a lot of telehealth stuff now too, which is totally legitimate, and that’s okay. But just clarifying what that nexus is with their provider, that there’s an actual therapeutic relationship is okay. You don’t want to ask what they talked about, you know, but if they said, well, you know, here’s the last, if they provided to you, hey, here’s the last 10 bills that I’ve gotten or paid for. That’s pretty good evidence that there’s a therapeutic relationship going on. Yes, exactly.

Krista Reuther:

Also, you can use the information in that letter to look up the provider. Okay. So if they are a therapist, if they are a licensed professional, there is going to be a relevant state website where you can likely look them up. We have plenty here in Colorado where you can plug in their license number and actually see that they are a licensed professional. All right. Just remember that you cannot ask the tenant for personal details regarding their disability. It would be inappropriate. It would be disrespectful. No matter how well meaning you are, please don’t do that. Also, as a quick note here, you typically have a set timeframe in which you need to respond to service animal and ESA requests.

It’s generally 10 days, but make sure you check your local laws. That said, this is another great tip from Chris. It pays to be as responsive as possible, right? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure.

Chris Smith:

I mean, so if even if you have 10 days, if you know the answer, don’t need to wait 10 days. You know, I mean, if you know you’re going to deny it for, you know, whatever reason, you know, reply to them. Say, hey, so your service animal or ESA is denied for this reason.

Flip side if you’re going to accept it. You know, if you show that, you know, I’m responsive, I get back to my people quick, you know, that shows that you’re not trying to be nefarious in how you’re dealing with these type of things. I always reply quick. And one other thing that I always do is I don’t provide dead ends. I just say no or don’t just say no. I provide them what I want. So, you know, this is the reason why your request is being denied.

Here’s what you can do to actually get a legitimate one. And honestly, sometimes we probably don’t feel like we want to send them down the right path. I’ve had a few come back and do the right thing, but quite honestly, most of those that don’t have legitimate ESAs go somewhere else. But I don’t like providing dead end nose. I’m like giving them a way to solve their issue. And it looks better for you too if they make a complaint and you show the documentation. Well, I denied it because it was, it appeared to be false to me, and this is what I actually wanted from them. It goes a long way towards proving your case.

Krista Reuther:

Yes, absolutely. Couldn’t have said it better myself. All right. So, what if you suspect ESA or service animal fraud? First of all, proceed with caution and empathy, I would say.

I want you to stay calm and collected and then lean on the questions that you can ask. As Chris alluded to, a lot of fraudsters will bristle and they will kind of run away when they are asked for supporting documentation. And they might just leave you alone after that, right? Because if they know that you know the law, they know that they’re not going to get around it.

Okay. However, legit ESA and service animal holders are more likely to have their answers ready to go because they also had to learn the law. So, before approaching your tenant with any kind of accusations, make sure you contact your attorney. Again, you can get into a lot of HUD complaints or otherwise have negative impact on your business if you go at this full throttle, guns ablaze in, angry, yelling, don’t do that. Okay. I want you to proceed calmly, level-headedly, leaning on what you can ask and having all of your ducks in a row.

Chris Smith:

So, and I lean on that one a lot too. Individuals who use, who have service animals and individuals that have ESAs, a lot of them understand the law and they know the questions you can ask. So, if you ask, you know, is your animal needed because of a disability, they know you can ask that question. Well, yes, it is.

Okay, cool. What tasks have been trained to perform? They know that you can ask that question and then they shouldn’t, by and large, get upset with you because they know that that’s something that you can ask. If they’re starting to get upset with you when you ask those legitimate type questions, that’s often a key indicator that their animals are not legit. There again, because they know you can ask that question. Yes, exactly.

Krista Reuther:

So, we have a list of proactive strategies you can, you should consider in order to best protect your business and make sure that you’re doing right by your tenants with disabilities. So, first off, you can maintain top tier documentation through our platform. It’s free. You can have everything organized there every time that you’ve examined the request, collected a quote, et cetera.

You can have it all in one place, which makes it really easy if there is a HUD complaint for you to go back, pull it from the cloud, you’re good to go. Okay. I also want to make sure that you understand your local laws that align with the FHA and the ADA. So, do some research. Laws are always changing. If you don’t belong to a local landlord group, consider joining one.

I know Chris is in a few. Another great spot to start is our Facebook group, Better Landlords. Now, that is national, but you can always go in there and chat with people about what you’re seeing in your local legislation, things they’re seeing, and really have a conversation about how it might impact you and your business and how to move forward.

I also want you to stay consistent with your approach to vetting these requests, whether it’s accommodation requests, a modification, service animals, ESAs, you need to develop a system using all the knowledge you’ve gotten here today and make sure that you are repeating it every single time. As Chris said, you can’t just blank it, deny something after you’ve looked at it once. You need to make sure you’re doing your due diligence.

Every single time a request comes in. Lastly, if you think someone needs an ESA but they don’t have the proper paperwork, tell them how to do it. Maintain your requirements, but point your tenant in the right direction. It’s not only the right thing to do, but also it can be a really good boon for you and your tenant, and it’ll be good for your relationship too. We’ve also had some conversations about the benefits of tenants with properly vetted ESAs and service animals. Do you want to speak to that and how that might be great for your business, Chris? Sure.

Chris Smith:

If somebody understands the law and understands their responsibilities and has gone through the effort to dot their i’s and cross their t’s when it comes to meeting the requirements of an ESA or a service animal, chances are they’re also going to understand what’s required of them as a tenant. Actually, a lot of times, seed is a good thing. If they understand all these rules and laws that they’ve also understand the rules and laws around being a tenant, and they’ll probably be good tenants as well.

Krista Reuther:

Yeah, I think that’s important to consider because so often in this space when we’re talking about ESAs, it’s villainizing. It’s like, ah, these guys, what are they doing? This isn’t real. But when people go through the effort to properly vet their animals and make sure that everything’s on the up and up, that speaks volumes for how they might be in your rental. I think it speaks huge volumes. Yeah.

Chris Smith:

There’s a lot of questions on here. I just sit here and watch the chat as it’s going. There’s a lot of them. But like dangerous breeds. So the ADA and FHA don’t just don’t, I don’t want to say discriminates on what I was looking for, but don’t differentiate.

That’s what I’m looking for between different breeds. So even if your insurance says you can’t have them, your insurance is going to have to accept them just like you are. So that’s not something you have to worry about.

I might notify your insurance and say, hey, I have a legitimate service animal in my units. This is what it is. This is where it’s at. And notify them. But other than that, they have to accept them just the same. Multiple ESAs. Yeah, you can have multiple ESAs. Typically, it’s just one service animal or one ESA. But there can be multiple. There’s nothing that prevents that. There’s some other ones I saw too. I was trying to remember as they were scrolling through.

Krista Reuther:

No, I know. I appreciate that. So before we jump into some more questions, if you want to check out TurboTenna and start keeping all of your documentation in one spot, please do. You can sign up for free with that code on the left. We also have a quick ending poll. But while we do this, Chris, do you have a heart out at 12? It’s okay if the answer is yes.

Chris Smith:

No, I can go a few more extra minutes.

Krista Reuther:

You are a delight. Thank you so much. So let’s jump into some of these questions. This person says, I have student housing and lease individually by the bedroom. So they do roommate matching. If someone has a service animal, but there is a roommate in the unit with a pet allergy, how do you accommodate both? Service animal is going to win.

Chris Smith:

Every time. It’s the same as if they enter a restaurant and they walk in there and somebody who’s already there has an allergy to the service animal. Service animal is going to win. Yeah. I don’t have good reasons or answers or why.

Krista Reuther:

Fair. Fair. That makes a lot of sense. And maybe in that case, you could try and pair up the person with the allergy in a unit that doesn’t have an animal in it. Okay.

All right. We recently had someone apply that has a service dog. We asked where the dog stays during the tenancy long work hours and the response was loose as in in the yard without any tether or fence. We turned the applicant down because there is a leash law in our state. My question is this, is it possible to have a service animal that is without the owner for hours each day while they are at work?

Chris Smith:

So I heard two different things there because one was, you know, can it be left alone for hours while they’re at work? It would depend, of course, on the tasks that the animals train to perform. But the animals are still subject to all the same leash laws and, you know, licensing laws that every other animal is subject to in whatever jurisdiction. The exception being if the leash gets in the way or like if the person can’t hold the leash or if it gets in the way of the animal performing its task, it may not need to be leashed. But other than that, it still needs to be restrained and confined as any other animal. Yes. Well said.

Krista Reuther:

So June has a question. If a tenant shows up with an ESA after the lease is signed, do you have to honor the lease? And I do want to just briefly sidestep. Yes, if they have the proper documentation, like yes, and Chris, I’d love your opinion here too. But I will say bear in mind that disability can happen to anyone at any time. They could develop a need for an emotional support animal at any time.

One in four Americans is disabled. So it’s not like they will net, it’s weird if that happens. It’s not, it could just change overnight.

In fact, a lot of people are disabled overnight. So bear that in mind when we have these convos. But Chris, anything to add about honoring the lease after someone shows up with an ESA? Sure.

Chris Smith:

So I was actually going to say exactly what you did is that things can change during a tenancy. There’s some things and how it alludes to this in their documentation as well. You know, if you find that somebody has an animal in the unit already, and then once they get in trouble for having it, because they didn’t declare it, now they say it’s an ESA, that can be some clues that there’s some things going on there.

But if they come to you before that, before they get there and won’t say, hey, I have documentation for my provider that I need to have, you know, an ESA, that’s different. Yeah. Different circumstance. How they approach it matters. Yeah. How they approach it matters just as much as how you approach it.

Krista Reuther:

Absolutely. All right. A quick housekeeping question. Will this session be recorded and sent to us? Heck yes, America. It will be. So don’t you worry about missing the first 30. We will get those over to you within two business days.

Caitlin asked, do you have any resources regarding medical marijuana in rental properties in states where it’s legal? You read my mind. So that is something that we are looking to cover in some form coming up. So stay tuned. Make sure that you’re tuned in with our newsletter, the key, so you can see the next time we tackle that topic. But nothing currently.

So keep your eyes peeled. Joseph asked, can we request annual renewal of an ESA request from their regularly attending licensed mental health provider? Isn’t this the same as a prescription renewal? I’ve never required it.

Chris Smith:

If somebody has it, then I just, they’re already there. I’ve never asked for it. And so I guess I haven’t done the research to just to figure out whether I can require it or not. Yes.

Krista Reuther:

And I also have not done that research. So I’d encourage you to jump in and do that, Joseph. But I will say, if they have a valid ESA housing letter, it’s unlikely that their need for that ESA is going to change year over year. And that might be seen as an undue burden if you’re requesting, you know, a new letter every time.

Right? I know it’s just one letter, but it becomes a whole process if it’s something you’re regularly requesting. So make sure you do more research.

But again, their need is unlikely to change. So personally, I would take that letter and use that if it’s legit. As landlords, can we request the modification be completed by our chosen contractor and have our contractor paid by the tenant?

Chris Smith:

I would suppose that would depend on the reasonableness of your contractor. I mean, if your contractor was fair and their pricing and that kind of thing. I mean, there’s, there’s certain obligations there, right? If you were going to, if the tenant wanted to have dad come and put in the ramp. As an owner, I would have some concerns whether that would be properly built or not. I don’t think you’d have any issues requiring an actual licensed contractor. I think you might struggle on who the licensed contractor is. There you go. Yeah.

Krista Reuther:

And I think it’d be reasonable for your tenant to get other quotes in that case and be able to compare it to your contractor. And so that could be more of a conversation.

But all good points from Chris. Beverly asks, what happens if as a landlord, I’m allergic to most dogs and all cats? I’m assuming this is in relation to like an ESA or a service animal request.

Chris Smith:

So if you live in the unit, that’s easy, then you can deny it. My understanding is there’s, you can have ultimate discrimination if you can continue to live in the unit. And that’s where the animal is going to be. However, if you’re not living in it, you don’t have a choice. You’re going to have to allow the animal.

There you go. There’s a lot of questions I see popping up too about things like damage about animals that are nuisance, things like that. Service animals in the ESAs can’t cause problems. If they’re damaging your unit, then you don’t, you know, you can kick them out. If they’re causing problems, if they’re left at home during the day in park all day, that’s different. They can’t cause problems being in your units.

Krista Reuther:

There you go. And if that were to, let’s say, you know, one of your other tenants complains about the noise. You could then go to the tenant with the ESA and say, hey, I’ve gotten this noise complaint. Can you, well, actually, let me ask you, Chris, can you ask them to address that before you kick them out in some way? Like give them a notice to cure or quit? Oh, it may be just like any other type of, you know, incident.

Chris Smith:

You’re not just kicking somebody out because they’re dogs barking. You just have to go through all the processes and your local laws are obviously going to be, you know, different and varied as well. When I just said, when I figured out there, kick them out. That was with the full expectation that you’re going through, you know, the normal requirements of your area in terms of notice and opportunities to cure and things like that. Beautiful. All right.

Krista Reuther:

Is the service animal trained before it qualifies as a service animal? In other words, is there such a thing where a tenant has a service dog that is currently undergoing training to be a service dog?

Chris Smith:

So that’s going to depend on your local laws. So ADA does not recognize service animals in training, but Colorado being an example, Colorado does recognize service animals in training.

Krista Reuther:

There we go. Those local laws, man, it pays to know them. All right. Ooh, Cheryl has a spike. Well, it’s a spicy question. So Cheryl has a no pet policy and had a person say they have an ESA dog and cat with documentation. I told her I would need a $150 non-refundable deposit per pet and that I would need to do periodic inspections and that an inspection of their current residence would be needed. Was I wrong to require this? Yes. Yeah.

Chris Smith:

We’ll just leave it that. You can’t require any sort of additional deposits or pet rent or anything like that or inspections or anything like that. You just got to do your normal thing as you would if the animal wasn’t there. Yes.

Krista Reuther:

So it’s entirely fine to conduct inspections. I think all landlords conduct inspections regularly with proper notice, but as Chris said, it is a no-go charging pet rent or pet deposits for ESAs or service animals. So keep that in mind.

Chris Smith:

Somebody popped in there, we can’t ask for pet insurance either and that would be no. And pet addendums are not okay either. Yeah.

Krista Reuther:

That’s why, again, it pays to know what’s going on because you can easily get in some hot water with that kind of thing and it will end up costing you a lot more than the $300 that you collected from them.

Chris Smith:

So knowing that the animal is there, knowing what animal qualifies as the service animal or the ESA, those kind of things, that’s all good to know and that’s all stuff that the owner should know just as you want to know every person who’s living there. So knowing these type of things is not bad. Actually, it’s really good. But requiring any additional money or deposits or extra inspections, that kind of stuff, that’s not going to go over well. Yeah, that will not fly.

Krista Reuther:

All right. Lee asked, can we require a dog to wear a vest outside the apartment like other public places so that the other tenants understand why there’s a dog at a no dog property? So I imagine they’re probably talking about either an ESA or a service animal wearing some kind of visual cue. Is it legal to ask for that?

Chris Smith:

No, those vests aren’t required. A lot of people use them. Well, it’s a good indication that there’s, that the animal might be not legitimate, but a lot of people who have legitimate animals also use them because people stop asking questions. When they have them, that’s why they use them, but they’re not required in any way, shape or form.

And I wouldn’t require them at all. Quite honestly, it’s not the other tenants they don’t need to know. Obviously, they’re going to start asking questions. And if they do, you just be honest with them. It’s like, yep, they’re, it’s an emotional support animal.

And that’s where the conversation ends. We don’t talk to them about why they have it or what they, what documentation they provided or anything like that. It’s, it’s a legitimate animal and it’s allowed to be here. It’s not a pet.

Krista Reuther:

Well said. All right. During the rental app stage, can you require disclosure of any animal, including ESAs and service animals?

Chris Smith:

No, it’d be nice if you could. But this is something they can bring up after you’ve accepted them as a tenant. A lot of times people think that they’ll be discriminated against. If they offer that information upfront, just it is in like the hiring and application process for employment. They don’t have to disclose those disabilities until after certain points in the hiring process. And it’s the same for this application process. They don’t have to tell. They don’t have to let you know. Once you’ve accepted them as a tenant, then they’ll want, they’ll need to let you know.

Krista Reuther:

Yes. What you can do if you use TurboTenant to provide a specific information. And you can also customize that prescreener with a few questions and you can specifically ask how many animals do you plan to move in with? Now, again, you are, it’s verboten to discriminate against people for their ESAs and their service animals, but you can at least open up the conversation with a question like that worded about animals in general.

Chris Smith:

So somebody else asked in there, if you’re a tenant, do you need to disclose if you, you have an ESA since I’m not technically a pet? And I would say you do need to disclose it. Yes, I have an animal here and here’s the documentation about why I can have it.

Krista Reuther:

That’ll go a long way, tenants out there, if you’re watching. Just being proactive, getting the legit documentation and presenting that rather than a situation Chris mentioned earlier where maybe you weren’t supposed to have any animals in this unit and one is found. And then you say, no, this is my ESA, you’re going to really hurt your own cause there. So be upfront, have transparent conversations. Christopher asked, can you ask for an ESA or service animals shot in vet records?

Chris Smith:

They’re still required to comply with all of the licensing that any other animal is. So I would just, I wouldn’t go down that route. I would just ask for the evidence of licensing and let the local jurisdiction figure that part out. Beautiful.

Krista Reuther:

All right. So let’s see, I’m sorry, there’s so many questions here. I really appreciate you guys sticking on. We’ll do a few more. There are about 94. So forgive us, we won’t be able to hit all of them. But let’s see. Okay. Jack asked, what if the tenant only saw the provider one time remotely when trying to secure an ESA?

Chris Smith:

I mean, it’d be a lot like those, the internet providers, there’s no therapeutic relationship there. I, you’d have a lot of opportunity to question the legitimacy of that one. There you go.

Krista Reuther:

And someone else asked, how would you communicate to that tenant that this wouldn’t be acceptable or that you need more information without opening yourself up to a lawsuit?

Chris Smith:

For an ESA? Yes. Is that there? So interesting, my screen just like went pretty much blank. Everything disappeared except you. So when it comes to an ESA, I mean, you just, so if they provide you a letter that you look at and you, you have good reason to think that it’s not a legitimate letter, I would just explain to them straight up. This is why I don’t think it’s a legitimate letter. But there again, I always provide that it’s not a dead end, right? Here’s what I do need from you in order to help back up that this is actually a legitimate letter.

Krista Reuther:

There you go. Again, being transparent, don’t just do a dead end. Make sure that you are trying to work through this with them. It’s not you versus the tenant. You guys are trying to work together to solve the issue.

All right. Kim, yes, the Q &A will be included in the deck. It is part of what’s being recorded. So that will be sent over. So don’t you worry there. I know there’s a lot of information coming at you. Let me try and grab another one. Okay.

There are so many great ones in here. If a potential tenant comes to you with an existing ESA letter from a provider, can you have a policy that all tenants requesting an accommodation, no pet fees or no pet units, fill out the same form adapted from the State Fair Housing Board?

Chris Smith:

So it’s just like an information. This is the animal and this is what they look like. Is that what it’s asking?

Krista Reuther:

I think so. It’s sounding like they want all tenants requesting an accommodation to fill out a form in addition to providing that ESA letter. Yeah.

Chris Smith:

I mean, actually, it shows a lot of legitimacy that if you’re using a standardized form to just get that basic information, but then it goes back to that individual process, right? An individual evaluation of every request. But just to have a form of basic information to get you started, I think that’s okay. Yes.

Krista Reuther:

Beautiful. Okay, guys, I know that there are a lot of questions we couldn’t address and I apologize for that, but we need to let Chris go eat lunch and probably me too. So thank you so much for being here today. There is so much great information. We will be continuing this conversation. So head on over to our Facebook group if you’d like, Better Landlords.

Alternatively, keep your eyes on your emails. We will be sending out this deck. There’s a little tiny survey at the end of this.

Please fill it out. We’ve got some questions for you about what you want to learn next. And otherwise, I hope you have a great day. And lastly, Chris, thank you so much for being here. You are so smart. I really appreciate hacking into your brain for all these questions. Glad I could help. Bye, everyone.