An article about assistance animals in the January/February 2022 issue stated that documentation for support animals is valid for 12 months and that tenants must go back to their healthcare providers to ask if they still endorse the support animal for the disability. However, there is no obligation on the tenant to renew the reasonable accommodation documentation.
If the tenant’s disability is not readily observable or the documentation does not include information about a chronic disability-related need for the assistance animal, a landlord may contact the healthcare provider that provided the documentation after 12 months to assess whether the healthcare provider still advises the need for the assistance animal. There is no law that requires the tenant to renew the accommodation request on a yearly basis. 此外, if a landlord were to implement a practice of re-assessing reasonable accommodation requests, the landlord should include information about the re-assessment in the landlord’s written criteria or policies to apply to future requests. A landlord should not re-assess any accommodations the landlord has already granted prior to implementing such a policy.