Disability

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In addition to renting units, many apartment owners/managers rent space for commercial enterprises (such as restaurants and stores) in their properties. Which can make good sense for both – providing a needed service or store with a ready-made group of people living extremely close by. All good, right?

But, remember that when you lease space…

Continuing its efforts to enforce the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), last week the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that the owners and managers of four apartment communities in Utah agreed to pay $45,000 to settle a lawsuit asserting that they discriminated against residents and applicants with disabilities.

The complaint alleged that the defendants failed…

Three clients have recently sent me multiple emotional support animal medical verifications for review. After a few minutes of research, it seemed pretty clear that the medical verifications came from individuals who “sell” emotional support animal verifications or service animal registrations with just a few clicks of a computer mouse (and a credit card).  Coincidently,…

As discussed regularly in this space (and elsewhere), the number of reasonable accommodation and/or reasonable modification requests continues to significantly increase each and every year. As a part of this increase, however, is an increase in the number of requests which, shall we say, appear a bit dubious.  Make no mistake, professional apartment management and…

Here is a fact pattern that is just all too common in our fair housing management world. A resident, for example, stops paying his rent.  As we do with all residents who fail to pay the agreed upon rent, the leasing office sends the appropriate notice and then starts an eviction action pursuant to local…

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (which covers Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico) issued a Fair Housing Act (FHA) opinion concerning emotional support animals and the standards HUD (and courts) should use when evaluating requests for service/emotional support animals. Much of the opinion concerning the law is…

As I have noted in this space from time to time, the number of reasonable accommodation requests concerning service and/or assistance animals literally rises each month. While some of the requests are absolutely legitimate and should be approved as the animal owner has a recognized disability, many of the requests we see now attempt to…