The issue of online medical verifications for emotional support animals (ESA’s) is an ongoing problem for professional apartment management. As written in this space before, we want to approve all legitimate reasonable accommodation requests for our residents who need assistance animals. The key, of course, is “legitimate” – and that is the issue. I now have a number of different clients all working to review and evaluate ESA requests to determine, as best they can, if the medical verifications are legitimate. A quick internet search will reveal this is a lucrative industry and just about anyone can get an ESA letter by answering a few quick questions and using your credit card. Indeed, when investigative reporters look into online ESA’s, they routinely get verifications for goats and ducks as soon as they use a credit card. And when management pushes back in an effort to determine if the ESA verification is legitimate, we get back a form letter in return asserting retaliation under the Fair Housing Act.  We are not retaliating.  We just want the verification to be legitimate.

While I am unaware of the federal government acting to stop this abuse, the state legislatures in Colorado and Florida have now criminalized fraudulent claims of disability. These new state laws are certainly an important first step, but they are going to be hard to enforce. Now, I am aware of a Department of Housing & Urban Development settlement agreement in which it is made clear that for mental health and/or mental disabilities, the medical verification standard should be set higher and that verification is to be signed by a “medical provider, health or social service professional.”

These are but initial efforts at controlling a problem which is continuing to trouble apartment management. Again, fraudulent reasonable accommodation requests (and fraudulent medical verifications) do a disservice to those Americans (including our veterans) who are truly disabled and who rely on animals. Look, if you have a pet – just pay the pet fee. Most apartment communities are animal friendly these days and will welcome Rover or Fluffy.

Just A Thought.

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