Declaring service animals / emotional support animals prior to signing the lease

[Chris B.]

I've converted to being a pet friendly landlord.  It seems over the past few years that 75% of the applicants have pets so it makes sense to do so.  Conversion of flooring to accommodate this is expensive and I charge extra for pets now.  Many people try to get around this by claiming their pet is an ESA.  I'm OK with that if they tell me ahead of time and I process the paperwork and if seemingly legit, we get the addendum signed and we are good to go.  No fees for that animal.  If not, its a pet fee for you.  Some applicants don't notify you until the last moment unfortunately creating an awkward situation.  Therefore I have modified my application to include the following statement:  "List any pets, service animals, support animals, or other animals you will bring onto the property. If you have none of these, write I have no pets, service animals, or support animals."  I also have a statement that any falsified information on the application will lead to denial of the application or a termination of the lease.  There is no intent to violate any ADA policies on my part, but I feel someone that does not list their animal on my application when asked with the question above is providing a false answer and is subject to denial.  What do you think about this?  The denial would be due to falsification information on the application instead of whether they have an ESA or not.

I do have current tenants with ESAs so I have a track record of not rejecting them.  I also am aware a superior method of dealing with this situation will to accept a different qualified tenant first and not reject them at all.  I'm just curious what the thoughts are on this approach.

I also just discovered petscreening.com today and will be looking into that.  The tiered pet rent scale is interesting but I'm not finding anything on what goes into their grading system.  If I can understand why a pet gets a certain number of PAWS, then I can better judge an appropriate rent fee for that tier.  Thanks!

[Russell Brazil]

Quote from @John Underwood:

ESA no, Service dog yes.

ESA is treated as a pet and requires a pet fee if in a pet friendly house.

You may want to familiarize yourself with HUD Guidance Memo FHEO-2013-01. An ESA is a service dog under the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.