Great Potential Applicants with Pitbull ESA

[Maegan King]

Met with a couple and they were perfect candidates; met all of our criteria. At the showing they informed me thier ESA is a pitbull. I made a call to my insurance broker yesterday and they of course they said "no aggressive breeds". I asked them about the ESA status the dog had and they said, doesn't matter, that I could still be held liable. 

After reading through HUD information, I am understanding that our insurance denying us because of the dog breed would fall under the following:

• "Granting the request would impose an undue financial and administrative burden on the housing provider"

I have read through some other forums, just wanted to get any additional feedback from others and how they dealt with this situation. 

[Dan H.]

Quote from @Russell Brazil:

It's not an undue financial burden because there are plenty of insurance providers that will insure this at no additional cost.

 A year ago I had to change insurance carriers because of a change of policy by my carrier.   My insurance more than doubled. 

Most of us have insurance with the cheapest option and any change of carrier would result in a premium increase.  Add to this the risk of now having a new insurance carrier if a substantial claim has to be made and the consequences versus making the claim against a long time insurance carrier.  

I suspect in many cases a change of insurance carrier will result in higher costs and additional risk. 

I would deny the tenant based on the increased cost criteria.   I would invite the tenant to get the insurance carrier to change their policy. The prospective tenant will not succeed.  I would not change carriers to accommodate an ESA that my insurance does not allow.   

If they need an ESA, no one forced them to get an aggressive breed.  The issue is tenant caused.   They will need to find a LL where the ESA does not result in increased costs. In other words they will need to deal with the issue that their choice of ESA caused.