Emotional Support Animal - info for other tenants

[Stephen1]

WA State - I'm a landlord and I do not allow pets. Soon I will have my first tenant with an Emotional Support Animal (ESA). My question has to do with the other tenants. Are there any laws or regulations relating to what information I can/can not provide to the other tenants?
If I allowed pets then this would be simple. The difference between the pet and the ESA would be the lack of a pet fee. The other tenants wouldn't notice. But I don't allow pets so this will be quite obvious.

 

[quincy]

If asked, tell your other tenants that the animal is an approved service (ESA) dog - and leave it at that. Your tenants aren’t entitled to know anything more than that.

 

[NeilTheCop]

Copy and paste
"To qualify for an Emotional Support Animal in Washington, you will need an ESA letter from a Licensed Mental Health Professional licensed in Washington."
I'd make sure you potential tenant has one. Way too many people claiming their duck, peacock, pig, snake etc is an emotional support animal because the owner says so.

 

[quincy]

Copy and paste
"To qualify for an Emotional Support Animal in Washington, you will need an ESA letter from a Licensed Mental Health Professional licensed in Washington."
I'd make sure you potential tenant has one. Way too many people claiming their duck, peacock, pig, snake etc is an emotional support animal because the owner says so.

Copied and pasted from where?

 

[FlyingRon]

Please do not use the words ESA and "service dog" in the same sentence. It's an insult to proper service animals.

 

[quincy]

Please do not use the words ESA and "service dog" in the same sentence. It's an insult to proper service animals.

I agree that ESA and service animals are not equal, although service animals and (legitimate) emotional support animals both perform important services.

The following link is to Michigan State University’s College of Law, Animal Legal and Historical Center, with a comprehensive look at the laws on, the cases about, and the differences between, service animals and emotional support animals.
https://www.animallaw.info/article/faqs-emotional-support-animals

Stephen1 can use “assistance animal” to respond to questions asked by, or complaints made by, his tenants.

Here is a link to a Washington State Human Rights Commission’s Guide to the laws on service animals and emotional support animals:
https://www.hum.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/publications/Service Animals and the Washington Law Against Discrimination-032019.pdf

 

[NeilTheCop]

Copied and pasted from where?

It's an advertising site, so I didn't post the link.
Hopefully admin will allow this one.
https://waservicedog.org/wa-state-laws/

 

[Zigner]

It's an advertising site, so I didn't post the link.
Hopefully admin will allow this one.
https://waservicedog.org/wa-state-laws/

.org sites are generally less frowned upon. I don't see that as an "advertising site", although they may collect money for some of their services.

EDIT: In fact, I briefly poked around the site and didn't see any obvious indications that the site was trying to make money. I am running an adblocker, so it's possible something was blocked...

 

[NeilTheCop]

.org sites are generally less frowned upon. I don't see that as an "advertising site", although they may collect money for some of their services.

This was not the original site I cut and pasted from.
I'm terrified of annoying the moderators in case they make me listen to baby shark, again

 

[quincy]

It's an advertising site, so I didn't post the link.
Hopefully admin will allow this one.
https://waservicedog.org/wa-state-laws/

You shouldn’t post links to commercial sites but if you are going to quote material from commercial sites, you still need to attribute the source of the material. You need to give the author credit for his work.

It is best to avoid taking material directly from attorney or other commercial websites. Instead try to stick to .gov, .edu and (some) .org information.

Your latest link is a good one - although it is sourced from the Guide whose link I provided earlier.

 

[LdiJ]

Guys and Gals, even though we might all have separate opinions as to an ESA and a service animal, the reality of things is that its in the best interest of the landlord to explain nothing more to the other tenants than its a service animal...and then, only if one of the tenants makes a complaint.

 

[quincy]

Guys and Gals, even though we might all have separate opinions as to an ESA and a service animal, the reality of things is that its in the best interest of the landlord to explain nothing more to the other tenants than its a service animal...and then, only if one of the tenants makes a complaint.

LdiJ, that was never questioned.