Housing and Disabilities
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Overview
In 1991 the General Assembly added handicap as an additional protected class to Virginia's fair housing law. Being handicapped includes but is not limited to psychological disorders, emotional and mental illnesses, learning disabilities and recovering drug addicts and alcoholics. If someone is disabled you cannot refuse to rent to them because of their disability.
Reasonable Accommodations
Service Animals
If someone is disabled you cannot refuse to rent to them because of their disability. Just as important, if you are a housing provider the law also requires you to accommodate a person's disability by changing or modifying a rule or policy or practice when doing so is necessary to give the disabled person equal opportunity to use and enjoy his or her unit.
Under the fair housing law a housing provider who has established a no pet policy must allow a disabled resident to keep a service animal as a reasonable accommodation. The housing provider must allow the disabled resident to keep the service animal if three conditions are met: first, the resident must meet the definition of handicap as defined in the fair housing law; second, the housing provider must know about or should have know about the resident's handicap and third, the accommodation may be necessary to afford the disabled resident an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling.
Currently the only requirement to be classified as a service animal under federal law is that the animal must be individually trained and must work for the benefit of the disabled individual. There is no requirement as to the amount of training that the animal must take nor is there a requirement as to the amount of work that the animal must do for the disabled resident.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development's regulations implementing the Fair Housing Amendments Act in relevant part on page 3289 states:
A blind applicant for rental housing wants to live in a dwelling unit with a seeing eye dog. The building has a "no pets" policy. It is a violation of the law for the owner or manager of the apartment complex to refuse to permit the applicant to live in the apartment without the seeing eye dog because without the seeing eye dog the blind person will not have the opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling.
Parking Spaces
If someone disabled asks a housing provider to create or designate a parking space for them, generally the law is going to require the housing provider to create or designate the space if three conditions are met. First, the resident must ask for a designated space; second creating or designating the parking space would allow the disabled resident to live in and fully enjoy the premises; and third creating or designating the parking space would not create an undue financial or administrative burden for the housing provider.
In processing a parking space request from someone who is disabled you are entitled to ask for medical evidence that proves the resident has a disability. This does not give a housing provider the right to ask about the nature of the resident's disability but it does give them the right to ask for proof of their disability. Acceptable proof would be handicapped vehicle identification plates or tags or a letter from the resident's doctor, chiropractor or social worker. Once the resident provides proof, the housing provider has a duty to provide the parking space. And if more than one disabled resident asks for a parking space the housing provider will have a duty to accommodate each request.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development's regulations implementing the Fair Housing Amendments Act in relevant part on page 3289 states:
Progress Gardens is a 300 unit apartment complex with 450 parking spaces, which are available to tenants and guests of Progress Gardens on a "first come first served" basis. John applies for housing in Progress Gardens. John is mobility impaired and is unable to walk more than a short distance and therefore requests that a parking space near his unit be reserved for him so that he will not have to walk very far to get to his apartment. It is a violation of the law for the owner or manager of Progress Gardens to refuse to make this accommodation. Without a reserved space, John might be unable to live in Progress Gardens at all or, when he has to park in a space far from his unit, might have great difficulty getting from his car to his apartment unit. The accommodation therefore is necessary to afford John an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling. The accommodation is feasible and practical under the circumstances.
Evicting a Disabled Tenant
If you're a housing provider and one of your tenants violates his/her lease and if you know or suspect that they have a disability, you may not automatically evict the tenant. As a housing provider, before you evict any tenant with a disability you must first ask him/her if there is an accommodation that you can make that would alleviate or modify the behavior that caused the lease violation.
Reasonable Modifications
If someone is disabled you cannot refuse to rent to them because of their disability. Just as important though the law requires that you allow someone who is disabled, at their expense, to make reasonable modifications to their unit if such modifications will allow the disabled person full enjoyment of the premises.
In many circumstances a housing provider may condition approval of the modification on having the tenant establish an escrow fund to pay to have the unit restored to its original condition when the tenant moves. The housing provider can also ask for assurances that the modification will be done in a professional manner.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development's regulations implementing the Fair Housing Amendments Act give two examples of reasonable modifications.
Example (1) A tenant with a handicap asks his or her landlord for permission to install grab bars at his or her own expense. It is necessary to reinforce the walls with blocking between studs in order to affix the grab bars. It is unlawful for the landlord to refuse to permit the tenant, at the tenant's own expense, from making the modifications necessary to add the grab bars. However, the landlord may condition permission for the modification on the tenant agreeing to restore the bathroom to the condition that existed before the modification, reasonable wear and tear excepted. It would be reasonable for the landlord to require the tenant to remove the grab bars at the end of the tenancy. The landlord may also reasonably require that the wall to which the grab bars are attached be repaired and restored to its original condition, reasonable wear and tear excepted. However, it would be unreasonable for the landlord to require the tenant to remove the blocking, since the reinforced walls will not interfere in any way with the landlord's or the next tenant's use and enjoyment of the premises and may be needed by some future tenant.
Example (2) An applicant for rental housing has a child who uses a wheelchair. The bathroom door in the dwelling unit is too narrow to permit the wheelchair to pass. The applicant asks the landlord for permission to widen the doorway. It is unlawful for the landlord to refuse to permit the applicant to make the modification. Further, the landlord may not, in usual circumstances, condition permission for the modification on the applicant paying for the doorway to be narrowed at the end of the lease because a wider doorway will not interfere with the landlord's or the next tenant's use and enjoyment of the premises.
For more information about your rights and responsibilities under the handicapped provisions of the Fair Housing Law, call the Fair Housing Office at (888) - 551-3247 and request a copy of the booklet titled, "What Fair Housing Means for People with Disabilities".
Copyright © 2000 Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation
This web page was last updated: 08/30/2007 08:03:45 AM