Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Letters in Ann Arbor, MI

A majority-renter city in a homeowner state

Michigan rents 26.8 percent of its occupied homes. Ann Arbor rents 54.5 percent of its (27,544 of 50,499), which makes it one of only two majority-renter municipalities among the state’s twenty largest, the other being Kalamazoo.

It is also the most expensive of the twenty. Median gross rent is $1,649, more than 1.8 times Flint’s $915. That figure sets the local ceiling on deposits: Michigan’s cap is one and a half months’ rent, so an Ann Arbor landlord may hold roughly $2,474 in total, pet deposit included.

The rental year runs on the university calendar, which is why the animal question here usually arrives during an application rather than during a tenancy. That timing turns out to matter, because Ann Arbor regulates the application stage more tightly than any other city on this site.

What a landlord may charge you before you have a lease

Chapter 105 § 8:532 was added to the city code by ordinance in January 2025, and it is unusually specific.

A rental application fee may be charged, but it “shall not exceed $50”, the amount has to be disclosed in any advertisement for the unit, the screening criteria have to be given to you in writing before the fee is taken, and the landlord “must fully refund” it within 60 days if you are not offered an apartment.

Then the blunt sentence: “A Landlord shall not charge a Pre-Tenancy Fee.” The ordinance defines that term to include “wait list fees, holding fees, option fees, preparation fees, move-in fees or any other fee incurred prior to the start of a term of a lease”, while excluding rent, security deposits and the application fee itself. It cannot be waived by agreement, and a violation is a civil infraction carrying a fine of not less than $500, with a private right of action for the tenant on top.

The ordinance does not mention pets or animals anywhere. What it does is close off the space in which a charge attached to your animal could be collected before the lease term begins, without touching the deposit or the rent, which it says expressly it does not control.

Deposits: the state number, in Ann Arbor money

Whatever the lease calls it, if it comes back to you when you leave the unit in the condition the agreement requires, Michigan counts it as a security deposit. MCL 554.601(d) says so, and MCL 554.602 caps the total at one and a half months’ rent, about $2,474 here.

So a refundable pet deposit is not additional. It comes out of the same allowance as the ordinary deposit, and MCL 554.606 stops the lease from contracting around any of it.

For an approved assistance animal, the pet portion should not be charged at all. That argument is not the deposit statute; it is MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) and MCL 37.1502(1)(b), which bars discrimination in the “terms, conditions, or privileges” of a real estate transaction because of disability. Monthly pet rent is outside both the state cap and the city’s fee ordinance (§ 8:532 reaches fees incurred before the term starts, not recurring charges during it), so for a pet it is unregulated, and for an assistance animal it is the accommodation duty that answers it.

The commission that will hear you, and cannot make anyone move

Ann Arbor’s Non-Discrimination Ordinance, Chapter 112, is broader than state law. It covers housing and protects against discrimination because of disability, and also because of source of income, arrest record, HIV status, political beliefs, height, weight, family responsibilities and being a victim of domestic violence or stalking, categories the Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act does not touch.

The Human Rights Commission takes the complaints, on 734-794-6141 or HRC@a2gov.org. Read its published process before you rely on it. On receipt the commissioners review the complaint, give a copy to the City Attorney, and then may mediate, refer you to another local, state or federal body, refer the matter to the City Attorney, or dismiss it after review with that office. The commissioners are volunteers, and the city asks for patience.

It is a real route, and it is not an enforcement agency. Detroit is the only municipality in this state with a city department that investigates in its own right.

Used well, the local route is a fast, free way to get a landlord’s attention and to put the refusal on a record someone else has read. Used instead of the state route, it is a way to lose six months.

The deadline the city will not hold for you

The same city page says the thing most renters need to hear: deadlines for filing with state, federal or other local agencies “are neither extended nor otherwise changed by the filing of a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.”

That matters because the state clock is short. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights takes a complaint within 180 days of the act, on 1-800-482-3604. Outside that window and without federal jurisdiction, MDCR points to state court and a three-year window. HUD works on one year under 24 C.F.R. § 103.35.

Ann Arbor’s own leasing calendar can blur when the clock started. A lease signed in October for a September move-in may involve a refusal months before anyone moves anywhere. Date the request, keep the answer, and count from the refusal rather than from the tenancy.

What Michigan courts have said about the letter itself

Michigan has the appellate authority most states lack, and it cuts both ways.

In Riverbrook v Fabode the Court of Appeals held that a tenant may not “automatically establish a handicap and a need for an ESA with a simple letter”, and that the courts below had abandoned their gatekeeping role under MRE 702 by refusing to let the landlord test the documentation. The letter in that case came from a counsellor who had spoken to the tenant once, by telephone, with no records reviewed, no testing and no counselling.

The Michigan Supreme Court then vacated part of that decision, holding that neither 42 USC 3604(f)(3)(B) nor MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) requires expert-witness testimony in a reasonable accommodation case, because “[t]he statutes contain no such requirement.”

Both halves apply in Ann Arbor. A landlord may ask for reliable documentation where the disability and the need are not obvious. Nobody may require you to hire an expert. And an online certificate bought after a five-minute questionnaire is the exact document that failed in Riverbrook.

Who to call in Washtenaw County

The Fair Housing Center of Southeast & Mid Michigan covers Washtenaw along with nine other counties, from an office in Ypsilanti, on 1-877-979-FAIR. It investigates using testers, and its own list of things that should make a renter suspicious includes a landlord saying “Your assistance animal can’t be that breed”, a sentence with particular weight in the state where Riverbrook began with a breed ban.

Legal Services of South Central Michigan covers Washtenaw and twelve more counties for civil legal help. The Ann Arbor Housing Commission runs the city’s public and voucher-assisted housing, and if you live in one of its properties the accommodation request goes to the Commission as your housing provider as well as to any site manager.

Whichever you use first, protect the 180 days.