By Jeffery S. Watson on June 10, 2026
Jeff Watson says landlords and housing providers, please read this carefully, and you will see that positive change is on the horizon. New guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development limits the types of Fair Housing Act complaints the agency will accept regarding assistance or service animals. Click here to read more.
New guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development limits the types of Fair Housing Act complaints the agency will accept regarding assistance or service animals. Those who have followed me for some time have seen my previous articles over the years about this, based on my experiences with legislation and litigation in Ohio. The litigation was the most telling because the analysis that the Court of Appeals followed is very similar to what is laid out below and what the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is doing. They are going back to a strict reading of the actual law. Let me give you a quick review.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects people with disabilities. Disabilities are defined as something that interferes with an essential daily activity. Service or assistance animals must be able to address that disability. The two biggest examples I can quickly recall are guide dogs and dogs trained to prevent injury to a person experiencing a sudden seizure or a drop in blood sugar.
In recent years, this has become a wide-open, exploited area with multiple online cottage industries springing up to provide fake certifications for emotional support animals. This resulted in a stretch way beyond the bounds of what the ADA encompassed, and emotional issues are not frequently connected to essential activities of daily living. I’m not talking down to anybody who has anxiety, but anxiety is a symptom of a bigger condition. If you’ve been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety is a symptom, and PTSD is a disability. But anxiety in and of itself is not a disability and does not qualify someone for a service or assistance animal. After years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses, the landlord in an Ohio case related to this was vindicated (Helen Grybosky v. Ohio Civil Rights Commission, 2017-Ohio-7125).
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is sharply limiting which types of animals people with disabilities who are renting a home or apartment can claim as a “reasonable accommodation.” For the accommodation to be reasonable, it must relate to a condition that interferes with an activity of daily living. New guidance indicates that the FHA will only consider “animals trained to provide disability-related assistance” as an accommodation for people with disabilities under the Fair Housing Act.
Previously, animals that provided emotional support qualified even if they didn’t have any specialized training. As a result, landlords generally could not charge a pet fee or deny housing to an individual with an emotional support animal.
The directive to HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity staff late last month does not change existing law, but it does influence enforcement by curtailing what types of Fair Housing Act complaints the agency will take up. It replaces guidance that was issued in 2020.
Per the new guidance, HUD will more closely align its standard for determining which animals qualify as reasonable accommodations with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
One notable difference, however, is that the housing agency will recognize any species with proper training while the ADA definition is limited to dogs and miniature horses. Under the ADA, service animals are predominantly dogs and, with few exceptions, miniature horses, but no other creatures. HUD is going to continue to recognize many other species of animals with proper training as assistance animals. Proper training must actually occur. It can’t be manufactured by visiting a website, printing a couple of forms, and then claiming training is complete.
As I write these words, my mind returns to the moment one of my former tenants entered with a “service animal” on a leash and wearing a muzzle. The dog lunged and snarled at me. Clearly, that German shepherd was untrained.
“While requests to waive pet policies for animals trained to perform specific disability-related services are presumptively reasonable, requests to waive pet policies for untrained ESAs are not,” reads the memorandum from Craig W. Trainor, Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “By prioritizing the most meritorious cases involving trained assistance animals, (the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity) can responsibly utilize its enforcement discretion to deploy enforcement resources consistent with the best reading of the law.”
All open cases related to emotional support animals will be reviewed by Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs, Robert A. Doles, and will be determined on a case-by-case basis, HUD said. The agency noted that its regulations on this topic have not been updated in 35 years and indicated that it plans to propose updated rules that are more consistent with those under the ADA.
For people with emotional support animals, the new guidance means that “filing a complaint with HUD is no longer a meaningful option,” according to the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund. “That removes a significant deterrent that previously helped keep landlords from denying ESA requests or charging pet fees,” the group said.
What has not changed is the Fair Housing Act itself. The law still says landlords must make reasonable accommodations for disabled people. And today, based on the changes that we anticipated a year and a half ago, we know that HUD will focus on the letter of the law and what defines a true disability.
Jeffery S. Watson is an attorney who has had an active trial and hearing practice for more than 25 years. As a contingent fee trial lawyer, he has a unique perspective on investing and wealth protection. He has tried over 20 civil jury trials and has handled thousands of contested hearings. Jeff has changed the law in Ohio four times via litigation. Read more of his viewpoints at WatsonInvested.com.
Showing 1 reaction