Get an ESA Letter in Ohio

With a valid letter

• ✓refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling unit, including associated public and common use areas, under R.C. 4112.02(H)(19)
• ✓require a tenant with a disability to pay any extra charge for an animal assistant kept on leased premises, under Ohio Admin. Code 4112-5-07(C)
• ✓rely on the no-higher-degree-of-care limit in R.C. 4112.024(F) against an accommodation request, because that limit reaches only divisions (H)(1) to (18) and the accommodation duty is (H)(19)
• ✓ask whether an applicant, a prospective occupant or an associated individual has a disability, or ask about its nature or severity, outside the five inquiries listed at R.C. 4112.02(H)(17) and only where those are put to every applicant
• ✓claim a small-landlord or owner-occupied exemption, because R.C. 4112.024 grants none that reaches disability
• ✓condition permission for a reasonable modification on a security deposit larger than the one customarily required of all tenants, under R.C. 4112.02(H)(18)(b)
• ✓segregate the placement of a tenant with a disability in a particular unit, floor, building or complex without that tenant's request or consent, under Ohio Admin. Code 4112-5-07(A)(1)(d)
• ✓discriminate because of the disability of a household member or of an individual associated with them, rather than of the person signing the lease, under R.C. 4112.02(H)(15) and (16)
• ✓keep any part of a deposit without an itemised written notice and the amount due within thirty days of termination and delivery of possession, under R.C. 5321.16(B)
• ✓coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere with a tenant exercising a right granted by division (H), under R.C. 4112.02(H)(12), or retaliate against someone who opposed a discriminatory practice or filed a charge, under R.C. 4112.02(I)

Still applies

• ·decline where the specific tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would cause substantial physical damage to the property of others, under R.C. 4112.024(D), but bears the burden under Ohio Admin. Code 4112-5-07(E), and speculative evidence will not suffice under 4112-5-07(F)
• ·ask for information establishing the disability and the disability-related need for the animal where neither is obvious, that being the enquiry the accommodation analysis actually calls for
• ·hold the tenant liable for damage the animal actually causes, which Ohio Admin. Code 4112-5-07(C) states in the same sentence that bars the extra charge
• ·set the security deposit at any amount, Ohio imposing no cap, but must pay five per cent annual interest on the excess over fifty dollars or one month's rent, whichever is greater, where the tenant stays six months or more, under R.C. 5321.16(A)