If you are undergoing any mental or emotional frailty so you and your ESA animal are privileged to get Fair Housing. Fair housing is meant to secure the tenants from the discrimination of landowners. However, it is designed for the people with restrictions, special needs or assistive aids, such as ESA or Service animals. Here is the dissimilarities between service animal and ESA explained:
Difference between ESA and Certified service animal:
Service animals:
These animals are actually trained for some particular chore/duty for the disabled individual. For instance, navigating the disable person and warning when the blood pressure etc.
Emotional Support Animals:
These animals do not need any type of special training they are kept just for getting love and comfort. These animals include cat, dog, fish, birds etc.
Fair Housing Act:
The FHA (Fair Housing Act) is a law that explains that any individual with any physical or mental frailty cannot be denied from the fair housing along with their emotional support animal or service animal. This comprises of apartments and buildings that ensure “no pet policy” in the society. The building managers and property owners are accountable for making reasonable accommodation for emotional support or service animals.
Despite the fact that you have legal rights under the Fair Housing Act, still, there are some conditions that the landlord does not obey the law. These conditions consist of:
- When the service or emotional support animal is a too large i.e. horse, camel etc.
- The single-family house that was leased without the involvement of real estate agent.
- The building that consists of 4 or less than 4 units and the property owner is the inhabitant of one of them.
Documents of your Emotional Support Animal:
According to the fair housing act about emotional support animal, a property owner has the legal right to demand an appropriate document to verify that you need the services of your emotional support animal. This ESA letter is actually written by the licensed mental health professional i.e. psychiatrists, Psychologists, therapists etc. This ESA letter cannot be endorsed by your family doctor because they are not licensed mental health professionals. Additionally, this emotional support animal document is required to be signed and printed on the official letterhead of the mental health professional.
Few building managers may ask for an additional form that is provided by them is required to be filled by the mental health professional.
As you have all the rights according to the Fair Housing Act, you must not let your building manager or the landowner reject your Emotional Support Animal. If you think that your legal rights are being challenged, do not hesitate to follow the legal procedures in order to stop the discrimination.
Warnings for ESA Owners:
The Fair Housing Act and American Disability Act and many other laws are offered for the protection of the ESA owners. However, the idea of Emotional Support Animal is somewhat new, and many landlords are ignorant of their legal responsibility to put up with ESA’s. The tenant with the ESA is not liable to pay any pet rent, pet fee or pet deposit.
