Emotional Support Animal Letters: A Landlord's Guide

Why ESA letters come up at all

The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers to make reasonable accommodations in rules and policies when a person with a disability needs them to have equal use of a home. A no-pets policy is a rule, and allowing an animal that helps with a disability is the accommodation. An emotional support animal provides therapeutic support or comfort that relieves a symptom of the disability. It doesn’t need any special training.

The ESA letter is how a tenant shows the disability and the need when neither is obvious. That’s all it is. There’s no official ESA registry, certificate, vest or ID card, and none of those prove anything on their own.

What changed at HUD in 2025 and 2026

HUD withdrew its 2020 assistance animal guidance (FHEO-2020-01) and its 2013 assistance animal notice on September 17, 2025, and confirmed the withdrawal in the Federal Register in April 2026. On May 22, 2026, HUD’s fair housing office issued an enforcement memo: it now finds reasonable cause and recommends charges only in cases involving animals trained to provide disability-related assistance. The memo also says a request to waive a pet policy for an untrained emotional support animal isn’t presumptively reasonable, and that HUD plans new rules.

That changes what HUD will pursue, not the statute. The Fair Housing Act’s reasonable accommodation requirement still stands, a tenant can still sue in federal or state court, and state and local fair housing laws often protect support animals on their own terms. The rest of this guide describes the process HUD used through 2025. It’s still the cautious way to handle a request, especially where your state’s law follows it.

Service animals and support animals are handled differently

HUD’s January 2020 guidance on assistance animals (FHEO-2020-01), withdrawn in 2025, split assistance animals into two groups with a different process for each.

Service animals are dogs individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability, such as guiding someone who is blind or alerting to a seizure. If it’s not obvious what the dog does, you may ask only two questions: is the dog required because of a disability, and what work or task has it been trained to perform? You can’t ask for documentation, and you can’t ask the dog to demonstrate.

Support animals are every other assistance animal, including emotional support animals. For these, you may ask for reliable documentation, but only when the disability or the disability-related need isn’t obvious or already known to you.

What you can and can’t ask

You can:

• Ask for reliable documentation when the disability or need isn’t apparent.
• Confirm that the person writing the letter is a licensed professional.
• Ask what kind of animal it is, and ask the tenant to follow the same rules other residents follow, such as cleaning up waste and keeping the animal under control.
• Ask the tenant to follow local licensing and vaccination laws that apply to all animals.

You can’t:

• Ask for a diagnosis, medical records, or details about how severe the disability is.
• Require a specific form, a notarized statement, or a particular type of provider.
• Charge pet deposits, pet fees or pet rent.
• Apply breed, size or weight limits from your pet policy.
• Require the animal to wear a vest or have a certificate.
• Delay the decision for weeks while you “look into it.”

What a reliable letter looks like

Under HUD’s 2020 guidance, reliable documentation comes from a health care professional who has personal knowledge of the person, such as a physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, licensed counselor or social worker. A good letter usually:

• Is on the professional’s letterhead, with their license type, number and state.
• Says the person has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, without naming the condition.
• Explains that the animal helps with a symptom or effect of that disability.
• Is signed and dated.

The letter doesn’t need to describe the diagnosis or be on any particular form. If a letter leaves out the link between the disability and the animal, you can ask the tenant for that piece. Don’t treat a missing detail as an automatic denial.

Online ESA letter mills

The hard cases usually come from websites that sell a letter or a “registration” after a short quiz. HUD’s 2020 guidance said that documentation from sites that sell certificates, registrations or licensing documents to anyone who pays a fee, without an individualized assessment, isn’t sufficient by itself to show a disability.

That doesn’t make every online letter invalid. Telehealth is common, and a licensed professional who actually evaluates and treats the tenant can write a reliable letter after a video appointment. The questions are whether the writer is licensed, whether they have real knowledge of this person, and whether the letter addresses the disability-related need.

Some states have added their own rules. California’s AB 468, in effect since January 1, 2022, requires a health care practitioner writing documentation for an emotional support dog to hold a valid, active license, to have had a client relationship with the person for at least 30 days and to complete a clinical evaluation, among other steps. That law governs the practitioner. It doesn’t change your duty to accommodate.

When you can deny the animal

A denial has to rest on facts about the specific animal or the specific request, not on fears about a breed or species. HUD’s 2020 guidance allowed a denial when:

• This particular animal poses a direct threat to others’ health or safety that can’t be reduced or eliminated by another accommodation.
• This particular animal would cause substantial physical damage to others’ property that can’t be reduced or eliminated.
• The request would impose an undue financial and administrative burden, or fundamentally change the nature of your housing operation.
• The documentation doesn’t show a disability or a disability-related need, after you’ve given the tenant a chance to supply it.

Evidence matters. A history of bites or aggressive behavior by this animal is a basis to consider. “Pit bulls are dangerous” is not.

The 2020 guidance also distinguished common household animals (dogs, cats, small birds, rabbits, hamsters, fish, turtles and similar animals) from unusual ones. For an unusual animal, the tenant carries a heavier burden to show why that specific animal is needed.

Timing and paperwork

A tenant can make a request at any time: on the application, at lease signing, mid-lease, or even after you’ve noticed an unauthorized animal. Respond within a reasonable time, which in practice means days, not weeks. Put your decision in writing, and if you deny, explain why and invite the tenant to discuss alternatives.

You can offer a request form to make the process easier, but you can’t require it. Keep requests and letters confidential and separate from general tenant files, with access limited to the people who need it.

Mistakes to avoid

• Charging a “paperwork” fee. Any pet-style fee on an assistance animal can be a fair housing problem, especially under state law.
• Asking for a diagnosis. You need to know there’s a disability and a need, not what the disability is.
• Applying your pet weight limit. The animal is assessed on its own behavior.
• Ignoring a request. Silence for weeks can be treated as a denial.
• Denying because the letter came from a website. Assess what the letter says and who wrote it.
• Forgetting state law. Many states have their own disability and assistance animal rules, and some cover small landlords the federal law exempts.