Pets for Emotional Support

I spoke with a friend this morning who lives in a 27 unit HOA that allows pets. She has two small dogs and believed they were both allowed when she moved in (in March 2014). She now learns that only one dog is allowed. She has one of the dogs as an emotional support animal (has a letter from her doctor). The board has "decreed" that she must get rid of one of her dogs. She has filed with mediation, and is being harassed by the board. She cannot sleep & is now on medication for this. Note: There are 3 other owners with 2 pets (one is a board member)... Does anyone have advise for her?

The ADA (which does not apply to HOA's) and the FHA (which does) define "service animals" differently.

From the Fair Housing/Equal Opportunity Bulletin Bulletin FHEO-2013-01 published April 25, 2013:

"An assistance animal is not a pet. It is an animal that works, provides assistance, or performs
tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, or provides emotional support that alleviates
one or more identified symptoms or effects of a person's disability."

You sometimes wonder if the two organizations are part of the same government.

Request how the other members are able to keep 2 pets when they are trying to force her to only have one (i.e. selective enforcement) and see what they say?

Emotional support argument likely wouldn't fly. That argument is typically when no pet are allowed. She would be able to keep the emotional support dog and not the other one.

John, That sounds like a fair compromise. Hopefully Lorayne's Board will see it as that. The fact that others have two pets may be enough to have the compromise occur.

From the ADA website:

"Title III prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the activities of places of public accommodations (businesses that are generally open to the public and that fall into one of 12 categories listed in the ADA, such as restaurants, movie theaters, schools, day care facilities, recreation facilities, and doctors' offices) and requires newly constructed or altered places of public accommodation—as well as commercial facilities (privately owned, nonresidential facilities such as factories, warehouses, or office buildings)—to comply with the ADA Standards."

Residential common interest communities are not places of public accommodation (no more than your home is), so the ADA does not apply.

However, the Fair Housing Act does require common interest communities to make reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities. This does not mean, for example, that an association has to install wheelchair ramps throughout the community as might be required by the ADA. It does mean that, if the CCRs normally would prohibit such an attachment to the exterior entrance of a unit, it must allow such a ramp to be installed to a particular unit if the disabled owner requires it and requests it. The association need not pay for the ramp. It must be paid for by the person requesting it and it must be removed when the disabled person no longer lives in the unit.

Thanks for clarifying this Bruce, I was not aware of this difference, but it is important to remember for the future.