At Home with Gary: Welcome mat or “No Pets”: HOAs struggle with support and service dogs


By Gary Lanham |Contributing Columnist

Dogs have gotten a bad rap lately. So have condominium HOAs struggling to enforce their rules. Can’t the two just get along?

In the “emotional support” era, some dog owners have paid for the paperwork from a licensed mental health professional or doctor needed to make their canine a comfort or emotional support animal (ESA). The numbers skyrocketed, from about 2,500 in 2011 to more than 200,000 in 2019.

Dawn Hanna of Oh Behave Dog Training. [Christine Geschwill]

For people with mental illness, anxiety, loneliness or other bonafide needs, the therapeutic benefits of an ESA can be invaluable. Service animals, conversely, are trained to mitigate a disability or physical or mental impairment that limits a major life activity.

People throw around the terms “comfort” and “service” like they are interchangeable. They are not.

The continued proliferation of ESAs has led to conflicts in “no pet” buildings. Many HOAs have been strong-armed by new buyers or tenants with ESAs demanding to be allowed to buy or rent there. Some successfully have challenged the policies, often under the threat of litigation, to the point that the HOAs have rolled over, rather than fight costly lawsuits.

Many original condo purchasers, however, bought in “no pet” buildings because they wanted peace and quiet.

How can the HOA curb this practice, without running afoul of federal law?

True service animals fall under accommodations found in the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act; their access to particular places of business, like a restaurant, airport or airliner, could be also governed by other state or federal agencies.

The Fair Housing Act defines assistance animals as those “that work, assist, or perform tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability, including providing emotional support, which alleviates or improves the symptoms or effects of a disability.” The ADA defines service animals as “individual dogs that have been specifically trained to work with or perform specific tasks for people with disabilities including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.

“A psychiatric service dog is not the same thing as an emotional support animal,” the ADA continues, “psychiatric service dogs are trained to detect the onset of psychiatric episodes, which can ultimately lessen the effects of the episodes.”

The Fair Housing Act applies to rentals and condo owners; the ADA applies to hotels and other temporary housing, and buildings used for religious and private functions.

Dawn Hanna, owner of Oh Behave Dog Training in Fort Lauderdale, said part of the issue could be in training. People brought home “pandemic puppies” during Covid or on a whim. Sometime after its arrival, the promise to train the dog to set boundaries and to be a good neighbor was lost. They’re left with a dog that may be antisocial or have anxiety, is dog-aggressive, an incessant barker or a marker of territory. In many situations, a dog that needs more exercise and interaction than life in a highrise allows is left with its basic needs ignored.

A service animal must be under the control of the handler. Most ethical service dog trainers will not even address training the task to mitigate the disability until the dog passes a public access test. It’s an expensive process. To learn more, visit disabilityrightsflorida.org and search for “service animal.”

If you’re an HOA or property owner, how can you ensure a dog is what the owner says it is? You can ask if the dog is a service animal, and what services it is trained to perform, especially if the disability isn’t obvious. You cannot ask about the owner’s disability or for documentation.

Neither I nor Hanna are offering legal advice here. Whether you’re a pet owner, or a property owner or HOA, consult an attorney. If your HOA is having difficulties here, Hanna’s website has a blog explaining these classifications.

As team leader for the Gary Lanham Group at Coldwell Banker Real Estate Fort Lauderdale Beach Office, Gary Lanham is a veteran listing agent skilled in the most complex transactions. ​He knows how to get sellers the most money in the shortest amount of time, even in this changing market. Contact him at instagram.com/garylanhamgroup or call 954-695-6518.

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