{"id":984,"date":"2023-05-26T17:17:12","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T21:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/?p=984"},"modified":"2023-05-26T17:17:12","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T21:17:12","slug":"ada-fha-hoas-service-animals-updated-florida-association-sued-housing-discrimination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/?p=984","title":{"rendered":"ADA, FHA, and HOAs And Service Animals: Florida Association Sued for housing discrimination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A short while ago we wrote a blog piece on the issues relating to<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/?p=913\"> community associations regulating service animals<\/a>. In that blog we noted that the Fair Housing Act (&#8220;FHA&#8221;) \u00a0&#8220;permits individuals with disabilities to keep an assistance animal as a reasonable accommodation when there are limitations imposed by the homeowner or condominium association on animals and pets.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0In Broward County, Florida, that county&#8217;s Civil Rights Division filed suit against a condominium association for violating the FHA by refusing to consider a person&#8217;s request for an <a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.sun-sentinel.com\/news\/politics\/broward\/blog\/2011\/05\/broward_files_suit_on_behalf_o.html\">&#8220;emotional servant animal,&#8221; a chihuahua<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-410\" style=\"border-style: initial; border-color: initial; text-align: -webkit-auto;\" title=\"courthouse\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/courthouse.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/courthouse.jpg 700w, https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/courthouse-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/p>\n<div><!--more--><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/weblogs.sun-sentinel.com\/news\/politics\/broward\/blog\/gocomplaintSchleifer.pdf\">In the lawsuit, the County alleges<\/a> that the resident<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>suffered from a number of\u00a0medical conditions, including severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder;<\/li>\n<li>received a doctor&#8217;s recommendation that she obtain an emotional support animal;<\/li>\n<li>that the resident acquired a small \u00a0dog as an emotional\u00a0support animal; and<\/li>\n<li>that the resident submitted copies of\u00a0medical records indicating her need for the requested accommodation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The association refused to permit the resident to keep the chihuahua because of its no-pet policy.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/?p=913\">we suggested in our blog<\/a>, your homeowners association could have legal problems denying a reasonable request that complies with the FHA unless the association can show that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the assistance animal poses a direct threat to the health and safety of others;<\/li>\n<li>that the animal will cause substantial damage to the property of others, and such threats or damage cannot be reduces or eliminated; or<\/li>\n<li>that allowing the assistance animal poses an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamentally alters the nature of the housing program or services.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In this Broward County case, the association now faces the costs of litigation and the poor publicity that it brings. We repeat our admonition for HOAs: for those requests that are difficult or cause concern to the association, the association should consult an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tarleyrobinson.com\/profiles.html\">experienced homeowner association law firm<\/a> immediately rather than risk any delays that may result in a Fair Housing complaint.<\/p>\n<h4>UPDATE: This case settled in April, 2012. The dismissal order did not indicate how the parties resolved the matter. Nonetheless, each party spent over a year in litigation, and agreed to pay their own attorneys&#8217; fees.<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Tarley Robinson, PLC, Attorneys and Counsellors at Law<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Williamsburg, Virginia<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_411\" style=\"width: 154px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/jt-photo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-411\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-411 \" title=\"jt photo\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/jt-photo-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"John Tarley\" width=\"144\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/jt-photo-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/jt-photo-819x1024.jpg 819w, https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/jt-photo.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 144px) 100vw, 144px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-411\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Tarley<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A short while ago we wrote a blog piece on the issues relating to community associations regulating service animals. In that blog we noted that the Fair Housing Act (&#8220;FHA&#8221;) \u00a0&#8220;permits individuals with disabilities to keep an assistance animal as a reasonable accommodation when there are limitations imposed by the homeowner or condominium association on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,57,75,23,4,141],"tags":[155,9,208,190,44,206,207,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2046,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions\/2046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tarleyrobinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}