My first (and favorite) Fair Housing Defense blog post of the year. With apologies to David Letterman, here are the Top Ten read posts from 2019. Yes, my Firm keeps count.
When I started this blog (quite a few years ago now), I thought only my family (Hi Sweetie!) and a couple of friends would read it. Turns out, we have found a space that works for quite a few people. For which I am exceedingly grateful. Here is the list with links to each page (just click on the title if you are curious):
1. An Update on Possible HUD Emotional Support Animal Guidance
2. “Failure to Cooperate” and Internet Purchased Emotional Support Animal Fair Housing Tester Cases
4. Are There Restrictions On Where Assistance Animals Are Permitted To Go?
7. Fair Housing Act Sex Discrimination Case Settles for $20,000
8. HUD Settles Disability Discrimination Case Concerning Mold and Retaliation for $6,000
9. HUD Proposes to Amend “Disparate Impact” Fair Housing Rule
10. HUD Settles Disability Housing Discrimination Case For Approximately $11,000
Blog posts addressing assistance animals (including emotional support animals) continue to receive the highest number of reads. Please know I will continue to work with HUD (as well as state, city, and county agencies) to find the best guidance for the apartment management industry. We want to get it right and approve legitimate assistance animal reasonable accommodation requests, while at the same time preventing the fraudulent animal medical verifications purchased online from the many “click and pay” websites that exist and only require essentially a self-diagnosis and/or an online assessment.
What can make it harder is that management is limited in what we can seek from our residents. Please understand we don’t want confidential health care or medical information. We don’t want information covered by the privacy laws. We just want to get documentation that is legitimate confirming the resident is disabled and that there is a link between the accommodation request (the animal) and the disability.
Look, I will follow your lead and will keep at it in 2020. And do my best to post on the issues that matter the most to you.
Just A Thought.