Assistance Animals in Housing

If you have a disability and your assistance animal helps you function, you should request a “reasonable accommodation” to be allowed to have your animal live with you. 

Normally your housing provider (landlord or condo association, for example) must allow you to have an assistance animal. Some exceptions are:

• the animal is a direct threat to the health or safety of others
• the animal would cause serious damage to property

A housing provider cannot say no just because of a “no pet” policy. They can’t say no just because other tenants might also ask for an assistance animal. Your request must be considered by itself.

Your housing provider can’t require that your assistance animal have special training or certification to be an assistance animal.

Some assistance animals have special training, some are trained by their owners, and some don’t have any training.

If your animal gives you help that you need because of your disability, it is an assistance animal under fair housing law, regardless of whether it has been trained.

Assistance animals that help you in your home are different from service animals. Service animals can go anywhere with you. Service animals must be specially trained. But animals that help you in your housing do not need special training.

Charging a fee or a pet deposit for an assistance animal is against the law. An assistance animal is not a pet under fair housing law. Your housing provider cannot charge you a pet deposit.

However, if your animal does damage to your apartment, your landlord can use your regular security deposit to pay for fixing it. If you do not have a security deposit or the damage is greater than the amount of the security deposit, your landlord can charge you for the damage. Your housing provider can do this only if they regularly charge others for damage that they cause.

Sometimes landlords ignore accommodation requests or deny an accommodation request. They need to give you an answer within a reasonable time.

Sometimes landlords try to evict a tenant because the tenant has an assistance animal. Sometimes they try to evict because the tenant has asked to have an assistance animal. Call us at 1-800-889-2047 or fill out our form. Your information will be sent to Legal Services Vermont, which screens requests for help for both Vermont Legal Aid and Legal Services Vermont. We may be able to help you enforce your rights.