Must you accept pets to avoid being sued?

Does a tenant's bipolar disease mandate that you allow him to own a cat?

How about a tenant's depression? If his doctor suggests to the tenant that he get a dog to alleviate his depression, are you required by law to allow the dog to live on your property, even if all your units are advertised as "No pets" units?

If you refuse to rent to a person claiming to need a pet for bipolar disease or depression, are you violating Ohio Civil Rights laws?

According to a recent discussion on WTAM 11 (Cleveland) radio host Bob Frantz's blog, "Frantz Rantz," the answer to all those questions might be yes.

What's more, Ohio rental property owners may be shocked to know that the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC) allegedly is running sting operations to catch landlords discriminating against people who own therapy animals, in much the same way they investigate claims of discrimination against particular ethnicities or families with children.

The blog entry includes a letter from one of Mr. Frantz's listeners, a Lake County landlord. In it, he details being "stung" by an OCRC investigation which included being duped by Commission plants pretending to suffer, in one case, depression, and in another, bipolar disease. The plants claimed that having pets eased their conditions and inquired if the landlord would bend his "No Pets" policy to accommodate them. After considering their requests, which in one case involved a German Shepherd, the landlord chose not to rent to the depression-afflicted gentleman due to there being small children living on the property. He then turned away the bipolar tenant with cats, stating that since he had just refused to bend his policy for one potential tenant, he could not turn around and bend it for another one.

A full year after turning away these potential tenants, the landlord received notice that he was being sued for discrimination by the OCRC.

We at www.easyrentcheck.com advise all Northwest Ohio rental property owners to talk with their attorneys about their compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, and with the OCRC. If you are approached by a prospective tenant claiming to need a service or therapy animal, it may not be a bad idea to directly contact the OCRC and inquire about your obligations. Last, it is well within your rights to require a medical prescription or letter from a prospective tenant's medical doctor, to prove that indeed the service animal is necessary.

Surely in the case of a visually impaired person, or one who is wheelchair-bound, the necessity of a service animal is obvious and in most cases, the animals used to assist persons with these disabilities are rigorously trained, tested, vaccinated, spayed/neutered, and certified as therapy dogs. But what about less evident disabilities, such as mental disorders, and what about classifying any ol' untrained, uncertified, unneutered, hair-shedding, fear-aggressive, barky, bitey Spot or Fido with an unknown veterinary history as a "therapy animal"?

Unfortunately, in the case of mental disorder-prescribed therapy animals, there is no certification or training program required to classify dogs or cats; and there is no legislated list that states for a fact which diseases, disorders and conditions medically require the assistance of animals and which ones do not.

This is where it gets confusing for rental property owners, who may find themselves -- like Mr. Frantz's listener -- unknowingly and unintentionally breaking the law.