I have an emotional support animal. How do I get my new landlord to let me keep it?
- NYC’s Human Rights Law and federal fair housing laws protect your rights
- Your healthcare provider can write an ESA letter confirming your need for an accommodation
- Landlords and boards are likely to grant your request according to our experts
In New York City, doctors, health care professionals, and social workers can write an ESA letter.
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I have an emotional support animal. How do I get my new landlord to let me keep it?
No matter what your New York City housing situation is, landlords and condo and co-op boards must allow your emotional support animal (ESA) unless it would cause them “an undue hardship,” under NYC’s Human Rights Law. In practice, this means that it’s fairly easy to get your landlord to allow your support animal, as long as you follow a few steps.
NYC landlords and property managers typically have a protocol for accommodation requests, either through a form or their website, said Andrew Lieb, a discrimination lawyer and founder of law firm Lieb at Law. (For example, renters living in NYCHA public housing are asked to submit these forms.)
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You should start by emailing your property manager or landlord to see how to make a request, and you might find that you don’t need to do much more than that. Some property managers will approve an animal request without requesting an ESA letter—a document from your health care provider explaining that you need an ESA, said Melissa Cafiero, president at Halstead Management Company.
Read on for what steps to take when making a request for an emotional support animal.
What can my landlord or board ask me?
Your landlord or your condo or co-op board can request that your healthcare provider confirm that you have a disability and that your animal will help treat it—if your disability is not easily observable—through an ESA letter.
But your housing provider can’t require that you disclose your specific disability, according to the NYC Commission on Human Rights.
“The city’s laws are so much broader than state and federal as to what is classified as a disability and what information you can ask for,” said Stewart Wurtzel, a partner at Tane Watermen & Wurtzel.
A property manager might ask for copies of your pet’s vaccination records or NYC dog license, said Don Wilson, president at property management company Blue Woods Management. But outside of that, a board is unlikely to push back against an emotional support animal request, because a resident could then complain to the NYC Commission on Human Rights.
“Building attorneys have advised that if [tenants] have the paperwork, the board will end up losing,” Wilson said.
Who can write my letter?
Your doctor or healthcare provider would be the most qualified person to write an ESA letter on your behalf. In New York, doctors, health care professionals, and even social workers are qualified to write an ESA letter, Lieb said.
There are a handful of companies that offer ESA letters online for a few hundred dollars. But an online service is “not, by itself, sufficient to reliably establish that an individual” has a “disability-related need for an assistance animal” under the Federal Fair Housing Act, according to guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Going through your healthcare provider is more likely to meet your landlord or board’s requirements. Wurtzel said that buildings he works with mandate that the medical professional authoring the ESA letter is someone who is treating the resident. An online service is not enough, he added.
Plus, going through your own healthcare provider will help endear you to your board, Cafiero added.
You should expect your landlord or board to get back to you about your ESA request within no more than three months, Wurtzel said.
That’s because if your landlord chooses not to enforce a no-pet rule and you’ve had a pet in your apartment “openly and notoriously” for three months or more, the portion of your lease banning pets is waived under city law.
