How to Navigate Support-Animal Housing Rules in Florida

Are you accidentally creating an avoidable dispute by placing buyers into pet-restricted communities without addressing the need for a client’s emotional support or service animal? That risk has grown more serious since September 2025, when HUD withdrew the federal fair housing guidance that housing providers had relied on for years to evaluate these requests.

Unless you understand what Florida law allows and requires before a transaction closes, you risk setting up disputes that surface after the deal is done, leaving clients to deal with the consequences.

Rules around emotional support and service animals have always been a challenge in fair housing compliance, but the regulatory landscape has shifted, and local enforcement agencies now tell attorneys they’re operating without any clear direction. In 2024, a near-record 32,321 housing discrimination complaints were filed nationwide, according to the National Fair Housing Alliance, and disability-related claims accounted for more than half of them.

That number is unlikely to drop now that the federal framework has disappeared.

The Problem Often Begins During a Transaction

Buyers arrive with emotional support animal letters and assume the document overrides a community’s pet restrictions. Realtors® sometimes reinforce that assumption by telling the buyers that the animal will be approved or by advising them to disclose the animal only after closing. In some cases, the governing documents and/or the association’s process for evaluating accommodation requests are never verified.

That assumption can unravel quickly once the buyer takes possession of the property. Landlords and housing providers—not real estate professionals—approve emotional support and service animals. When buyers move into pet-restricted communities expecting an animal to be accepted, the dispute often emerges after the transaction is complete.

What’s the Difference?

Understanding the difference between service animals and emotional support animals is the first step in avoiding those conflicts. Service animals are trained to perform specific tasks for individuals with disabilities and are generally limited to dogs, though in some circumstances, miniature ponies may be used. They are protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act in public spaces and under the Fair Housing Act in housing.

Emotional support animals operate under a different framework. They require no specialized training and may include a wide range of domestic animals whose presence provides therapeutic support related to a disability. Their legal protection arises primarily under housing law, which requires landlords and associations to provide reasonable accommodations when a disability-related need is properly documented.

Because emotional support animals require no training, documentation becomes the central issue in many disputes. Housing providers may request reliable information confirming both the disability and the disability-related need for the animal.

Florida’s Legal Guardrails

Florida law sets guardrails for evaluating these requests. Section 760.27 allows housing providers to request reliable information supporting both the disability and the disability-related need for the animal. They cannot require a diagnosis, medical records or a specific certification form.

The statute also clarifies that internet registrations or identification cards alone are not sufficient proof that an animal qualifies as an emotional support animal. This is where the system is most frequently abused.

Many websites advertise instant ESA certifications or quick approval letters, but those documents do not automatically establish a legal accommodation. The law instead focuses on whether the documentation reflects a legitimate professional relationship and explains how the animal alleviates symptoms or effects of the disability.

Florida lawmakers also created penalties for fraudulent claims. Section 817.265 makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to knowingly falsify documentation or misrepresent a disability to obtain an emotional support animal accommodation. Misrepresenting a service animal can also trigger penalties under Section 413.08(9), including fines and potential jail time.

Questionable Documentation

Even with those provisions, questionable documentation continues to appear in housing disputes. In one Florida association, three emotional support animal letters from the same therapist arrived within a single week, each containing nearly identical language and raising immediate questions about whether the approvals reflected genuine clinical relationships or mass-produced documentation.

Similar patterns can include letters with matching wording, identical letterhead or expiration dates suggesting they were produced in batches. In a separate case, an Orlando psychologist was accused of issuing fraudulent ESA documentation without conducting meaningful clinical evaluations.

Other requests illustrate how loosely some ESA claims are framed. In one case, a resident said backyard chickens were necessary to help them sleep. When asked how chickens outside the home helped them sleep inside the house, the request quickly disappeared.

Avoiding Conflicts

For real estate professionals, the most effective way to prevent these conflicts is to address the issue before the transaction closes. Agents should review the community’s governing documents to determine whether pets are restricted and how accommodation requests are handled. If a buyer relies on an emotional support animal or service animal, the agent should encourage the client to obtain legitimate documentation from a qualified health care professional before completing the purchase.

Equally important, Realtors® should avoid making promises about whether an animal will be accepted. The authority to evaluate accommodation requests rests with the housing provider or association, not with the agent facilitating the transaction. When real estate professionals suggest an animal will automatically be approved, they risk creating expectations that may not align with the governing rules or the legal process required to evaluate the request.

Remember, real estate agents do not control whether an emotional support animal accommodation will ultimately be approved. But the advice they give before closing often determines whether the issue becomes a dispute at all.

You may be done with a transaction after closing, but clients cannot walk away from the consequences that follow when the rules governing emotional support and service animals were never fully understood. #

JoAnn Nesta Burnett is a shareholder/attorney at Becker & Poliakoff, P.A., in Fort Lauderdale, concentrating on state and federal fair housing discrimination and association litigation.