Rules for service animals and assistance animals and reasonable accommodation are complex and detailed, so Victoria Cowart of PetScreening.com recently did an excellent webinar on assistance animal guidelines.
Cowart, National Apartment Association Education Institute Faculty Director of Education and Multifamily Enterprise Sales For PetScreening, did the webinar called “You Bet Your Assets” how to “Master Assistance Animal Guidelines For Rental Housing.”
She said the title was chosen because “you are betting your assets, personal and professional, on your understanding of all things Fair Housing.” She also provided a workbook to go along with the webinar which can be downloaded below.
What she called the “furry” Fair Housing elements.
What Are Your Pet Rules?
She took on the issue of rental properties and their “pet rules” to understand U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rules as well as other federal rules and provided assistance animal guidelines.
Cowart said to set aside breed restrictions, weight limits, the number of pets because these animals do not count as a pet. Remember also no pet deposits, no monthly pet fees, etc.
“HUD is not going to tell us what ‘reasonable’ means, but I can tell you what an accommodation is. An accommodation is a change, exception or adjustment to a rule, policy or practice,” Cowart said.
“Simply put if someone is speaking to you about an assistance animal … they are talking about any version of an assistance animal. With your listening ears on you are hearing a request for reasonable accommodation.” They do not have to use specific words.
Remember that animal is like a walker or a wheelchair for a disabled person and you would not tell them they could not have that in the rental unit. It is part of their treatment plan.
The webinar discusses when documentation is needed or not. How to tell the difference between service and support animals plus other topics such as:
- Doggie drivers’ licenses sold on the internet are not worth what people are paying for them.
- “My insurance company” made me do it or use of the insurance company to deny a request is not a defense as far as HUD is concerned.
- There has been a 200% increase in reasonable accommodation requests between 2015 and 2019 compared to the previous 20 years.
- 70% of residents have pets or animals.
About Victoria Cowart
Victoria Cowart, CPM, NAAEI Faculty is a multifamily industry member with extensive experience providing management and oversight for multifamily housing communities (conventional & subsidized), mobile home communities, and HOAs. She is a property management instructor and a proud graduate of the NAA Lyceum Program. Victoria obtained her degree in the Management of human resources and then her industry CPM designation. She was honored to be commissioned an SC “Palmetto Patriot,” to receive the Charleston Regional Business Journal’s Executive “Influential Women In Business,” and the NAA AIMS Grassroots Member Advocate of the year.