A co-op board’s determination of an apartment owner’s request to keep a support pet was front page news in November 2012. In Woodbury Gardens, the consequences included a $58,700 settlement payment to the estate of the owner (who died shortly after the board denied her a waiver of the building’s no-pet rule), the required adoption by the board of a formal/written pet policy and three years of oversight by the U.S. Attorney’s office of the administration of that policy.1 Also in November, a condominium board sued apartment owners to compel removal of a dog which the owners claimed was required in order to assist the wife’s father who became deaf after brain tumor surgery. The board alleged that the owners never provided documentation demonstrating that the father required the dog.2
As these recent cases illustrate, boards are uncertain, and with good reason, regarding their legal obligations when owners request exemptions from a building’s “no-pet” rule based on the alleged need for a pet for emotional support. Courts allow condominium bylaws and co-op proprietary leases and house rules to restrict the presence of pets.3 However, this authority is limited by federal, state and city laws that require exemptions for persons who require a pet for the use and enjoyment of an apartment. While boards apparently have little difficulty granting waivers to blind individuals who require seeing-eye service dogs, boards do not always know how to respond to owners who claim to have impairments or conditions that require a pet in order to enjoy the use of their apartment. Further, courts and administrative tribunals have given conflicting messages as to what an owner must establish in order to keep a support pet.
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