Is Your Park Going to the Dogs?

New Court rules and some newer Federal laws require mobile home park managers to allow more dogs.  In many instances, either the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or the Fair Housing Act (FHA) give park tenants the right to keep a dog or other pet even though park rules would otherwise prohibit them.  Disabled people may request a reasonable accommodation for service dogs and emotional support animals to live with them.    Presuming the tenant and animal meet the proper definitions, community management must allow the animal to stay absent an unreasonable financial hardship in doing so.

It’s important to know what you can’t do as a property manager.  You can’t ask what the tenant’s disability is.  Also, you can’t discriminate based on the perceived severity of a disability.  For example, you can’t allow accommodations for a quadriplegic in a wheel chair while not allowing accommodations to another who has no readily visible disability.  This could be someone that appears physically normal but reports their fluffy Bull Mastiff helps reduce the anxiety they’ve suffered due to the University of Texas’ 2015 football team’s performance.  Finally, you can’t refuse to make an exception to your rules unless doing so is a significant financial hardship.

It’s equally important to know what you can do as a property manager.  You may demand the pet owner keep their animal in their control at all times.  You may remove any pet that is a known danger to others in your community.  And you can require that everyone seeking to qualify their animal as an emotional support or service animal status sign a letter requesting such and submit supporting documentation from a “Health Professional.”  Unfortunately, the “health professional” moniker is not clearly defined and therefore may mean anyone from a Masseuse to a Neuro Surgeon (you can find such a form letter at www.MobileAgency.com – under the “Forms” tab titled “Service or Emotional Support Animal Letter Form from Tenant”).

For those managers wanting to take a more aggressive approach to preventing large or aggressive dogs from residing in their park, a claim of significant financial hardship can be made.  Virtually all park insurance companies refuse to insure properties where the managers allow vicious dog breeds (includes Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, German Shepherds, Dobermans, Chows, Akitas, Wolf Hybrids, Mastiffs and a few others) or dogs that weigh over 30 lbs.  A simple claim that you’d be happy to make the accommodation but you can’t because neither your insurance company nor any other will allow it is accurate.  The caveat to this approach is that unless you also have tenant discrimination insurance coverage, you won’t have coverage should a tenant sue you over your refusal to allow Fifi, their huge pit bull, into the park.

By Kurt D. Kelley, JD
President, Mobile Insurance
Kurt@mobileagency.com