Recently We’ve Had Inquiries About The Presence Of Dogs On The Elevators And In The Common Areas

While the PTCA Declaration prohibits Dogs and Cats as pets, properly prescribed service and support animals are welcome, consistent with the relevant law governing housing and residences such as a condominium community. This includes the Federal Fair Housing Act, the Americans With Disabilities Act, and the State of Illinois Assistance Animal Integrity Act.

We urge anyone with concerns or questions about this, or about a particular animal or handler that you’ve observed, to NEVER confront the person involved. If you have questions or concerns of any kind, please always contact the office first and let us address them. Applications are reviewed by the Association’s legal counsel, who then recommends to the Board whether the application is sufficient under the law. If they are properly registered with the building, no one properly prescribed a service or support animal should be confronted or questioned for any reason. (Unless of course there is a safety issue at the time.) Residents with properly prescribed animals for service or support are registered with the building, and those residents should be allowed to live and enjoy their premises and use of the common areas free from any harassment or hostility. We can’t send a list or residents and pictures of animals to everyone – that would be inappropriate. So contact the office with questions or concerns.

While we realize many Owners and residents may have moved into the community specifically because pet dogs and cats are not allowed under the condo Declaration, service and support dogs and cats are welcome once the Boards attorney has said their application is sufficient. They are not considered pets under the law, as an attorney might explain. Here is a very good site on the web that discusses Service and Support animals and the law, and what we can and cannot do as far as restrictions:

https://adata.org/guide/service-animals-and-emotional-support-animals

This is very consistent with the Fair Housing training our team gets. Some of the key passages from this:

The Fair Housing Act (FHA) protects a person with a disability from discrimination in obtaining housing. Under this law, a landlord or homeowner’s association must provide reasonable accommodation to people with disabilities so that they have an equal opportunity to enjoy and use a dwelling.  [In a high rise this would include common areas such as a passenger elevator] Emotional support animals that do not qualify as service animals under the ADA may nevertheless qualify as reasonable accommodations under the FHA. In cases when a person with a disability uses a service animal or an emotional support animal, a reasonable accommodation may include waiving a no-pet rule or a pet deposit. This animal is not considered a pet. 

A landlord or homeowner’s association may not ask a housing applicant about the existence, nature, and extent of his or her disability. However, an individual with a disability who requests a reasonable accommodation may be asked to provide documentation so that the landlord or homeowner’s association can properly review the accommodation request. They can ask a person to certify, in writing, (1) that the tenant or a member of his or her family is a person with a disability; (2) the need for the animal to assist the person with that specific disability; and (3) that the animal actually assists the person with a disability.  It is important to keep in mind that the ADA may apply in the housing context as well, for example with student housing. Where the ADA applies, requiring documentation or certification would not be permitted with regard to an animal that qualifies as a “service animal”.

ADA and FHA do indeed supersede the Association’s Declaration, as does the Illinois Assistance Animal Integrity Act, so communities such as Park Tower have to follow them. No matter how you look at it, the Association has to be in compliance with the governing law.

The PTCA Rules do address Service and Support Animals, and we request anyone that is being prescribed a dog or a cat request an application from the office and complete it for review and registration. From the rules, page 39:

SERVICE ANIMAL POLICY

Pursuant to Section 11(f) of the declaration, dogs and cats are prohibited in the building. Notwithstanding, the association will reasonably accommodate the needs of a disabled resident as required by the Fair Housing Act and allow a trained service animal or an emotional support animal to assist a resident with a disability. All requests shall be approved by the board in writing.

The following rules apply to all service animals:

1. Service animals or emotional support animals shall be on a leash or in a carrier while on any common property. Animals running at large or unattended are prohibited.
2. Service animals or emotional support animals shall not be permitted to defecate, urinate, or track in mud/dirt on the common property. In the event of an accident, the resident shall immediately pick up, clean up, and dispose of pet waste.
3. Service animals or emotional support animals shall be controlled so as not to create a nuisance, including but not limited to excessive barking while on the property.
4. Residents are responsible for the actions of service animals or emotional support animals, and for the costs of repairing any damage caused by the animals.

Failure to comply with the rules may result in removal of the animal from the property.

This subject was also originally discussed just over 10 years ago, in an article online and in the Tower Talk Newsletter:

From November 1, 2014

The Law On Working, Service and Emotional Support Canines

Canines, specifically domesticated dogs, are uniquely positioned to be useful in our lives.

They are socially in tune with humans. Dogs, for instance, are one of the few animals that understand the meaning of a human pointing a finger toward an object or location; not even monkeys or apes have made that logical leap. Dogs also have a high level of intelligence, a desire to please, an innate curiosity, and an incredible sense of smell. They are also relatively strong animals. All these characteristics make them able to assist both individuals and societies to accomplish specific tasks, often tasks no human could do nearly as well.

To understand how Federal laws work with these animals, it is important to separate the dogs into three groups: service dogs are trained to help disabled individuals to work and live more independently by means both obvious (i.e., seeing eye dogs) and subtle (a diabetes assistance dog monitors a person’s breath for signs of low blood sugar). Working dogs are trained to accomplish tasks from the traditional (sheep-herding) to the high-tech (while bomb-sniffing dogs are well known, research is being done to train dogs to sniff for compounds generated by tumors in the low concentrations of early-stage cancers). Finally, emotional assistance dogs are not trained for any specific skill, but act to calm and mitigate a human’s mental or psychiatric disability.

So what are the legal issues regarding these animals? It’s first useful to recognize that all dogs are very social animals and work best in small teams. This is illustrated not only by packs of hunting dogs or teams that do search and rescue work, but also by canine/human teams that bond closely together. Most working dogs work as part of a human/canine pair who live together both on and off the job. When the human half of a working team retires, it’s not uncommon for the dog to retire as well. It is not ideal for a dog to be housed away from its partner and then come together as a team for its “job”; the dog needs to learn to trust and understand its human partner by living with him or her.

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) has very specific rules regarding service dogs. First it notes that a service dog is only defined as a dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. For landlords and communities, it is required that disabled persons be given “reasonable accommodations” as needed in order to fully use and enjoy their home; allowing these people to be accompanied by their service animal is such an accommodation as defined by the law.

Only limited inquiries may be allowed: Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? If so, then what work or task has the dog been trained to do? It is not legal to ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require any identification or documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task. The ADA does not accept allergies or fear of dogs as acceptable reasons to refuse people with service animals access or service. The disabled person cannot be asked to remove the service animal from the premises unless the dog is out of control and the person hasn’t taken effective action to control it, or the dog is not housebroken. Also, no fee can be charged that isn’t charged to those without an animal; if a fee is charged for persons with pets, that fee must be waived for service animals.

Emotional support animals, although not covered by the ADA since they aren’t given specific skill training, are covered by the FHA (Fair Housing Act). In this regard, emotional support animals aren’t considered pets, but as an assistive aid like a wheelchair. In this case, however, the person may be asked to provide a letter from an appropriate authority (therapist or physician) and must meet the definition of a person with a disability. There have been legal cases involving condominium associations and unit owners with assistance or service animals to back up these standings. However, there is controversy and some “gray area” between the FHA and ADA specifically because the ADA only covers animals that are trained for specific actions and the FHA does not.

Be aware that not all training is obvious, as not all disabilities are obvious. An autism service dog, for instance, can be trained to alert on behavior displaying overstimulation or shutdown and then apply pressure to the child’s foot or lap to alert him or her to the behavior displayed. This helps the child to catch him- or herself before the behavior gets ingrained. Epilepsy seizure dogs are trained to alert family members (either by barking or sounding a mechanical alarm) or to lie atop or beneath the child having the seizure to prevent injury; some dogs even learn to spot an oncoming seizure before its onset. Some training is unexpected by the public: a mobility assistance dog can not only be trained to help pull a wheelchair or brace a person who has lost his or her balance, but may also be trained to hold open doors, to pick up a dropped item, or even to put laundry in the washing machine and pull it from the dryer.

So how should you behave when around one of these dogs? Always ask the dog’s handler. He or she will be able to tell you whether you’d be interfering with its work. If the dog is wearing a vest, the dog is on duty and should not be distracted; it is best not to pet or talk to the dog because it is on alert for specific sights, sounds, scents, or behaviors. When the vest is off, a service dog is more relaxed and approachable. If, however, an emergency were to happen while the vest is off, the dog won’t shrug its shoulders and say “Sorry, I’m on break”; the dog is always on duty to some extent, so it is best to always ask the handler’s permission before attempting to interact with the animal.

by Vince DiFriscio

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References relating to this story may be found at https://www.ptcondo.com/TTref