The Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down the “Chevron decision” heralds what could be the end of the absurd Emotional Support Animal (ESA) scams that have plagued landlords and property managers since HUD administratively stretched Fair Housing laws to include anyone claiming “anxiety” or “whatever”.
This administrative rule—not a law—created a loophole that tenants have widely exploited. By purchasing a bogus $50 “doctor’s note” online, tenants can present themselves as “disabled” applicants and scare landlords and Property Managers into granting their “request for reasonable accommodation” for their 100-pound pit bull, under threat of a HUD lawsuit for “discrimination.”
We are not talking about legitimate Service Animals, such as seeing-eye dogs for the blind or extensively trained PTSD alert dogs for combat veterans. Those are 100% legitimate disabilities and those specially trained animals should never be declined by any landlord, under actual law.
Instead, we’re addressing self-proclaimed “disabled” tenants who lie about their disabilities solely to bring their untrained ESAs into properties that would otherwise disallow them.
HUD’s guidelines, which are “not a law, just a rule,” essentially permit ESAs to be anything, from a ferret to a python snake, or more commonly, large and dangerous breed dogs. And landlords can’t even charge a deposit under HUD’s rules.
As a “no pets” landlord, I can now safely decline an applicant with a 100-pound Rottweiler and refer them to one of the many “pet-friendly” property managers I know.
If they threaten to file a HUD complaint, I’ll tell them to go ahead. “We’ll see what an actual judge in an actual courtroom says about it”.
That judge will have no obligation to defer to or respect HUD’s opinion on the matter but will instead require proof of a legitimate disability and that the animal is a specifically trained Service Animal performing a defined function.
I’m not an attorney, and this is just my layperson’s take on what the striking down of Chevron means for the landlording and property management industry.