For years condominium and homeowners’ associations confronting requests for emotional support animals (ESAs) operated under a relatively well-defined framework established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The agency’s 2020 guidance, Assessing a Person’s Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act, became the primary roadmap for evaluating ESA requests and was frequently cited by attorneys, housing providers, administrative agencies, and courts.
That landscape changed dramatically in May 2026 when HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) formally withdrew the 2020 guidance and announced a significant shift in enforcement priorities. At roughly the same time, HUD withdrew numerous prior guidance documents and advisory materials, explaining that guidance documents should not be treated as binding law and should not impose compliance obligations beyond those found in statutes, regulations, and binding judicial precedent.
The obvious question for condominium and homeowners’ associations is, does HUD’s action effectively eliminate the emotional support animal category altogether or merely place it in legal limbo? The answer, at least for now, appears to be somewhere in the middle.
FHEO’s stated rationale for why it withdrew its prior guidance is important because it sheds light on how the agency intends to approach future enforcement. The withdrawal memorandum repeatedly emphasizes that guidance documents do not carry the force of law and should not be used to create obligations beyond what Congress enacted in the Fair Housing Act or what HUD formally adopted through rulemaking. FHEO specifically expressed concern that prior guidance had effectively expanded fair housing obligations through informal agency interpretations rather than through regulations adopted under the Administrative Procedure Act.
FHEO also explained that it is reviewing its enforcement practices in light of a broader federal policy favoring strict adherence to statutory text and limiting reliance on nonbinding agency guidance. In a separate withdrawal notice, HUD stated that guidance documents should be issued only when they are necessary and when they reduce compliance burdens rather than increase them. Significantly, HUD announced that the withdrawn guidance should not be relied upon by the FHEO or stakeholders while the review process remains ongoing. The agency further stated that withdrawn guidance documents had been removed from HUD’s website and should no longer be treated as authoritative. For associations that have spent years hearing that HUD guidance effectively governed ESA requests, this is a substantial development.
The most consequential portion of HUD’s May 2026 memorandum is its discussion of service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The memorandum notes that the Fair Housing Act itself contains only a limited regulatory example involving a trained service animal—a seeing-eye dog for a visually impaired resident. FHEO then observes that, over time, agency guidance and judicial deference to that guidance expanded the concept of reasonable accommodations to include untrained emotional support animals. HUD now appears to be moving away from that approach.
The memorandum specifically points to ADA regulations defining a service animal as one that is individually trained to perform work or tasks directly related to a disability. FHEO highlights the ADA’s distinction between trained service animals and animals that merely provide emotional comfort, companionship, or a sense of well-being. Most notably, FHEO states that as an enforcement priority FHEO will generally find reasonable cause for failure to provide an animal-related accommodation involving a waiver of a pet restriction only where the animal has been individually trained to perform work or tasks directly related to the complainant’s disability. That language has understandably generated considerable attention. For the first time in many years, HUD appears to be signaling that its enforcement resources will be focused primarily on trained assistance animals (such as service animals) rather than traditional ESAs.
At this point you may be asking yourself whether the withdrawal of the prior advisory memorandums eliminates the ESA category. Simply put, not necessarily. The withdrawal of guidance is not the same as an amendment to the Fair Housing Act. Congress has not amended the statute. HUD has not adopted a new regulation eliminating ESAs. No court has held that ESAs are categorically excluded from reasonable accommodation protections. Instead, HUD has withdrawn guidance documents and announced a change in enforcement priorities. That is a distinction that matters.
The Fair Housing Act still requires housing providers to make reasonable accommodations when necessary to afford a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. The statutory language remains unchanged. As a result, attorneys representing residents seeking ESAs will undoubtedly continue to argue that an ESA may qualify as a reasonable accommodation under the Fair Housing Act even without the 2020 guidance. Some courts may continue to accept those arguments based on prior judicial decisions interpreting the statute independently of HUD’s guidance.
What has changed is that applicants can no longer point to HUD’s 2020 guidance as authoritative agency direction establishing detailed procedures, documentation standards, and presumptions favoring ESAs. In that sense the ESA category has not disappeared, but its legal foundation has become significantly less certain.
The situation becomes even more interesting in Florida. Section 760.27 of the Florida Statutes specifically addresses ESAs in housing. The statute defines an ESA and establishes procedures for evaluating accommodation requests. Among other things, the statute permits housing providers to request reliable information supporting both the existence of a disability and the disability-related need for the specific ESA when those matters are not readily apparent. The statute also authorizes denial of requests when the animal poses a direct threat to persons or property that cannot be eliminated through another reasonable accommodation.
When Florida enacted this statute, much of the statutory framework reflected concepts that appeared in HUD guidance and federal fair housing interpretations. Consequently, many practitioners viewed the statute as largely codifying existing federal principles. The question now is whether Florida’s statute remains fully viable after HUD’s withdrawal of its guidance and related advisory opinions. There are arguments on both sides.
On one hand, Florida’s statute remains valid law. The Florida legislature has not repealed it, and nothing in HUD’s withdrawal memorandum expressly invalidates the Florida statute. On the other hand, the Florida statute repeatedly references federal fair housing concepts and contemplates evaluating information in accordance with the Fair Housing Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. To the extent Florida’s statute was built upon assumptions derived from HUD guidance that no longer exists, courts may eventually be required to determine how much weight should be given to those statutory provisions. Quite obviously, this creates uncertainty for associations attempting to reconcile state law with a federal agency that has now withdrawn the very guidance that previously established the basis for much of the analysis.
For condominium and homeowners’ associations, several practical observations emerge.
Community associations should recognize that the withdrawal of HUD’s 2020 guidance removes one of the most frequently cited authorities supporting ESA requests. Applicants and their representatives can no longer rely on that guidance as current HUD policy.
Community associations may have greater flexibility to scrutinize ESA requests than they had under the withdrawn guidance. HUD’s memorandum expressly criticizes prior interpretations that discouraged housing providers from asking reasonable follow-up questions and suggests that greater scrutiny may be appropriate.
Trained service animals remain on much firmer legal footing. HUD’s memorandum repeatedly references animals individually trained to perform disability-related tasks and identifies such animals as the primary focus of future enforcement efforts.
Community associations should continue to evaluate requests individually rather than adopting blanket policies rejecting ESAs. Although HUD’s enforcement priorities have shifted, the Fair Housing Act itself has not been amended, and courts may continue to recognize certain ESA-related accommodation claims.
As always, community associations should ensure that any denial is supported by a careful factual analysis and competent legal advice. A denial based solely on the assumption that ESAs no longer exist as a legal category would be premature.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from all of this is that currently this area of law remains unsettled. HUD’s withdrawal of its prior guidance unquestionably represents a major policy shift. It weakens the administrative foundation upon which many ESA claims have been built and signals that federal enforcement resources will be directed primarily toward accommodations involving trained assistance animals. Yet at the same time, the Fair Housing Act remains unchanged. Section 760.27 of the Florida Statutes remains on the books. Prior judicial decisions recognizing ESA accommodations have not automatically vanished. In addition, courts have not yet had sufficient time to determine the full legal impact of HUD’s actions. Also, as of the writing of this article, it is our understanding that local fair housing agencies are still processing discrimination complaints concerning ESAs. Accordingly, community associations should view the current situation as one involving substantial uncertainty rather than definitive answers.
What can be said with confidence is that the 2020 HUD guidance is no longer available as authority. The detailed framework that many housing providers relied upon for evaluating ESA requests has been withdrawn. Likewise, HUD has indicated that withdrawn guidance documents should not be relied upon while the agency’s review is ongoing. Whether ESAs ultimately survive as a recognized category under the Fair Housing Act will likely be determined through future litigation, regulatory action, or congressional intervention. Until that occurs, associations should understand that the legal landscape is shifting and is anything but fully settled.
For now, ESAs appear to occupy a legal middle ground: no longer supported by HUD’s prior guidance yet not entirely eliminated from fair housing law. That reality creates both opportunities and risks for community associations. With all of this in mind, community associations should discuss the implications, both good and bad, of what appears to be an ever-changing playing field regarding ESAs with their association’s attorney and should continue to treat requests for ESAs on a case-by-case basis. Indeed, for the time being, how a community association may respond to a request for an ESA may largely depend upon the association’s own risk tolerance.
