New Florida Law Changes Rules for Support Animals

     Several months ago, the long-awaited update to the Housing and Urban Development Guidelines relating to reasonable accommodations for service and support animals under the Fair Housing Act was finally released (FHEO Notice: 2020-01). The revised guidelines had been greatly anticipated by landlords, apartment owners and condo/homeowner’s associations with no pet policies in the hopes that the Department of Housing and Urban Development would crack down on (i) the perceived falsification of applications for a reasonable accommodation for support animals by nondisabled persons using the request to place a pet in a non-pet residential unit based upon Internet acquired letters of disability and the need for a support animal; (ii) limiting the number of support animals to one per household; and (iii) addressing exotic or farm animals as support animals.

    Unfortunately, while HUD discussed the issue of internet-based certificates, registrations and licensing documents for assistance animals, HUD did not make this type documentation invalid as part of an accommodation request.  Instead HUD stated that “…many legitimate, licensed health care professionals deliver services remotely, including over the internet.” Therefore, under said guidelines, if an accommodation is requested based on an Internet diagnosis, it appears that the accommodation must still be granted if the health care professional confirms, in writing, a person’s disability and need for a support animal when the provider has personal knowledge of the individual.

    HUD also addressed the issue of multiple support animals and confirmed that there must be separate disabilities addressed by each of the support animals in order to receive a reasonable accommodation. Finally, regard to requests for a reasonable accommodation for non-household pets, defined by HUD as “unique animals,” HUD has stated that requests a “substantial burden of demonstrating a disability-related therapeutic need for the specific animal or the specific type of animal.” 

    The disappointment over the new HUD guidelines was short-lived as the Florida legislature stepped in and addressed the issue of Internet certificates in connection with requests for s reasonable accommodation for support animals. The new act, effective July 1, 2020 under Section 760.27 Florida Statutes, acts to block requests based solely on medical diagnosis prescribing a support animal over the Internet, a common method used to obtain a reasonable accommodation by many tenants and owners of dogs and cats seeking to rent or buy a in a no pet property.

    Specifically, the new legislation states that if a person’s disability is not readily apparent (usually some form of recognized psychiatric or mental disability, such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), depression, etc.) then a request is contingent upon the delivery of appropriate healthcare information diagnosing the disability and its impact on a major life activity.  Previously, under the HUD guidelines, a letter obtained from a licensed practitioner over the Internet was sufficient to support a claim for a disability that warranted a reasonable accommodation (pet owners would simply pay a fee, answer a few questions online, and out popped a certificate prescribing a support animal for the owners disability). The new legislation goes further, and requires that any Internet-based diagnosis be conditioned on at least one in person treatment as follows:

Information from a health care practitioner, as defined in s. 456.001; a telehealth provider, as defined in s. 456.47; or any other similarly licensed or certified practitioner or provider in good standing with his or her profession's regulatory body in another state but only if such out-of-state practitioner has provided in-person care or services to the tenant on at least one occasion. Such information is reliable if the practitioner or provider has personal knowledge of the person's disability and is acting within the scope of his or her practice to provide the supporting information.

    With this new statutory restriction, the number of anticipated requests for a reasonable accommodation will be substantially reduced. This assumption is based on the fact that many requests for a reasonable accommodation do not rise to the legal threshold of a diagnosable condition that interferes with  a major life activity.  Pet owners who previously relied on Internet certificates from so-called reasonable accommodation mills will now either have to obtain healthcare information from a local practitioner after an in person diagnosis, at a considerably higher cost, or give up their request for reasonable accommodation.

This article is adapted with permission from a chapter Michael J Posner, Esq., wrote for the new Florida Real Property Law (Bluebook), published by Lexis (part of the new Florida Colorbook series for attorneys). Michael specializes in real estate law and can help all parties with support animal issues.  Michael can be reached at 561.594.1452 or by e-mail at mjposner@warddamon.com.