# ESA Letter in Southfield, MI: Policies, Not People

> Southfield rents 46.6% of its homes, mostly through managed apartment communities. How to move a written pet policy for an assistance animal, and by when.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/michigan-emotional-support-animal/southfield/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-17
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 76,874
- Households renting: 46.6%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Capped: 1.5 months' rent
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Varies by building
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The renter city in an owner county

Oakland County's pattern is ownership: Troy rents 26.7 percent of its
occupied homes, Rochester Hills 23.3 percent, Farmington Hills 35.3
percent. Southfield rents **46.6 percent**: 16,242 of 34,860 households.

The stock explains it. Southfield's rental housing is largely
professionally managed apartment communities along the office corridors,
not scattered houses with an individual owner. That single fact changes
almost everything about how an assistance-animal request goes here.

Median gross rent is $1,340, which sets the state deposit ceiling, one and
a half months, at roughly **$2,010**.

## A policy is easier to move than a person

In a small-landlord market the refusal is often personal and improvised. In
Southfield it usually arrives as a policy: a breed list, a weight cap, a
building that "does not accept animals". That looks more solid. It is
actually more workable.

MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) makes it unlawful in a real estate transaction to
"[r]efuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices,
or services, when the accommodations may be necessary to afford the person
with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy residential real
property." The statute is aimed squarely at written policies. A leasing
office that says "our policy is no dogs over 25 pounds" has stated the rule
that has to bend, in writing, without being asked.

Managed communities also have a chain of command. Ask who decides
accommodation requests, send it to that person, and keep the reply. The
refusal, its date and its wording, is the thing your 180 days runs from.

## What a Southfield office may ask for

Where the disability and the need are not obvious, a housing provider may
ask for reliable disability-related information. That is the standard the
Michigan Court of Appeals applied in *Riverbrook v Fabode*.

What no Michigan landlord may require is an expert witness. The Michigan
Supreme Court's order of 29 November 2022 vacated any reading of
*Riverbrook* to that effect, holding that neither 42 USC 3604(f)(3)(B) nor
MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) contains such a requirement.

Registration is the other line. Michigan's only official animal register
sits with the Department of Civil Rights, covers **trained service
animals**, and by the department's own account carries no legal weight at
all. It exists to make an animal visually identifiable, and being told by
a landlord to obtain one is grounds for a complaint rather than a step to
comply with. A leasing office asking for a "certificate number" is asking
for something no Michigan agency issues to an emotional support animal.

A compliance department is generally looking for something narrower than
people fear: a letter from a licensed professional who has actually
evaluated you, naming the condition and saying what the animal does about
it. Send it once, to the person who decides, and ask for the decision in
writing. Where a building has a portal for maintenance and payments, ask
whether accommodation requests go through it too: a request lost in a
ticketing queue is the most common reason a Southfield file goes quiet, and
it is avoidable by asking one question at the start.

## Money: two line items, one legal total

Large communities quote a security deposit and a pet deposit as separate
numbers, sometimes on separate pages of the application.

Michigan does not read them separately. MCL 554.601(d) defines a security
deposit to include any amount "returnable to the tenant on condition of
return of the rental unit by the tenant in condition as required by the
rental agreement", and MCL 554.602 caps the total at one and a half months'
rent, about **$2,010** here. A deposit may only be used for actual damage
beyond the normal course of habitation and for rent or utility arrears (MCL
554.607), and MCL 554.606 says none of it can be waived in the lease.

Add the numbers on your own application before you sign. If they clear
$2,010 on a $1,340 rent, the statute has already answered.

Where the animal is an approved assistance animal, the pet line should come
off entirely: MCL 37.1502(1)(b) bars discrimination in the "terms,
conditions, or privileges" of a real estate transaction because of
disability, and a deposit charged only because of the animal is such a
term. **Pet rent** is the item Southfield renters should watch hardest. It
is routine in these buildings, no Michigan statute limits it, and no city
ordinance does either, so for a pet it is simply a price, and for an
approved assistance animal it is the accommodation duty, not the deposit
act, that takes it off the ledger.

## The city's rental file probably does not include you

Southfield does run a rental registration system, **Ordinance No. 1656**,
which requires all one- and two-family rented or leased dwellings to be
registered and inspected every three years, on a $300 registration fee,
with non-compliance a municipal civil infraction punishable by a fine of up
to $500.

Note the scope. That ordinance is written for houses and duplexes, not for
the apartment communities most Southfield renters live in. If you are in a
managed building, you will not find your address in that system, and
nothing follows from it either way: the accommodation duty comes from state
and federal law, not from a city inspection file.

## Vouchers: the city stepped back

Southfield's Housing Commission page publishes a notice of transfer of the
administration of the **Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher** programme,
recording that the city divested from administering it.

If you hold a voucher, that means the agency you deal with is not city
hall. It does not change the animal question by a word: the accommodation
duty runs against your landlord under MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) and 24 C.F.R.
§ 100.204(a), whoever is paying part of the rent, and source of income is
separately among the characteristics the Michigan Department of Civil
Rights lists as protected.

## The centre Southfield pays for

The **Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit** covers Wayne, Oakland,
Macomb and St. Clair counties and names Southfield in its service area. The
city helps fund it: Southfield's Community Development Block Grant page
lists "[t]he Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit: Promoting equal
and fair housing" among the activities it supports.

The centre investigates, including by sending testers, which is the tool
that catches the refusal you cannot document from inside, such as the
apartment that becomes unavailable once the animal is mentioned. It is on
(313) 963-1274.

Testing matters more in a market like this one than in a city of individual
owners. Where the same management company runs several buildings, a pattern
is visible in a way a single tenant's experience never is, and a pattern is
what turns one refusal into a case somebody else can prove.

## The clocks

**180 days** to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, on
1-800-482-3604, from the act. **Three years** in state court for a
complaint outside that window with no federal jurisdiction, on MDCR's own
account. **One year** to HUD under 24 C.F.R. § 103.35.

Nothing in Michigan law gives a landlord a deadline to answer an
accommodation request, and a slow compliance department does not stop your
clock. Send the request in writing, chase it once in writing, and treat
silence as an answer if it goes on long enough to look like one. **Legal
Aid and Defender Association** serves Oakland County alongside Wayne and
Macomb if you need advice before filing.

## What Southfield landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where it may be necessary to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy residential real property: MCL 37.1506a(1)(b), and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a) federally.
- Cannot rely on a no-pets policy to refuse an assistance animal: the Michigan Department of Civil Rights gives "[a]llowing a service or support animal in a no-pet complex" as its own example of an accommodation state and federal law require.
- Cannot treat the request as settled by the animal's breed or size where the animal is an approved assistance animal: the accommodation analysis is individual, and a blanket rule is not that analysis.
- Cannot demand that the tenant register the animal or produce a state identification card. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights runs a voluntary identification programme for trained service animals and tells anyone "required to obtain service animal identification or register a service animal by a landlord" to file a complaint.
- Cannot require expert-witness testimony or a particular kind of professional: the Michigan Supreme Court vacated any reading of Riverbrook to that effect, holding that neither 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) nor MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) contains such a requirement.
- Cannot ask about the existence, nature or severity of a disability as a general screening question, 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(c), which allows only defined inquiries made of every applicant.
- Cannot hold more than one and a half months' rent in deposits from any tenant, a refundable pet deposit included, because MCL 554.601(d) defines a security deposit to include any amount returnable on the condition the unit is returned as the lease requires, and MCL 554.602 caps the total.
- Cannot use a deposit for anything but actual damage beyond normal habitation and rent or utility arrears, MCL 554.607, and cannot contract out of the act at all, because MCL 554.606 says its requirements may not be waived.
- Cannot write a lease clause that discriminates in violation of the PWDCRA: MCL 554.633(1)(c) prohibits it, and MCL 554.636(1) lets the tenant void the lease and recover $250 or actual damages, whichever is greater, once written notice has gone unremedied for 20 days.
- Cannot refuse to rent, or discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of the tenancy, because of a disability: MCL 37.1502(1)(a) and (b).
- Cannot refuse a reasonable modification made at the tenant's expense, though it may require restoration of the interior on move-out where that is reasonable, MCL 37.1506a(1)(a).
- Cannot start a clock the law does not give it: no Michigan statute sets a deadline for a landlord's answer to an accommodation request, so a request left unanswered is a fact to record, and the tenant's own filing deadlines keep running while they wait.

**Can:**
- Must show undue hardship if it refuses: MCL 37.1102(2) requires accommodation "unless the person demonstrates that the accommodation would impose an undue hardship", which puts the demonstration on the housing provider.
- May ask for reliable disability-related information where the disability and the need are not obvious: the standard the Michigan Court of Appeals applied in Riverbrook v Fabode, drawn from the 2004 joint statement of HUD and the Department of Justice.
- Is not required to accept an animal whose tenancy would be a direct threat to the health or safety of others. 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(d), but that is a judgement about the individual animal's conduct, not about its breed.
- Is exempt only in narrow circumstances: MCL 37.1503 excepts renting in a building with no more than two families where the owner or their immediate family lives in one of them, or renting a room in a dwelling the lessor lives in. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights states the same exclusion as "[o]wner-occupied one or two family dwellings".

## How to get an ESA letter in Southfield

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Southfield. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for Michigan clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation Michigan landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Southfield. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Southfield

- [Michigan Department of Civil Rights](https://www.michigan.gov/mdcr/enforcement/fair-housing) (state agency)
- [Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit](https://www.fairhousingdetroit.org/) (fair housing)
- [City of Southfield Housing Commission](https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/departments/housing-commission) (housing authority)
- [City of Southfield rental housing registration](https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/departments/building-department/building-southfield/rental-housing) (city agency)
- [Legal Aid and Defender Association](https://www.ladadetroit.org/) (legal aid)
- [City of Southfield CDBG programme](https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/departments/housing-commission/cdbg) (city agency)

## Frequently asked questions

### Southfield rents more than most of Oakland County. Does that change anything legally?

The law is identical; the practice is not. At 46.6 percent renters (against 26.7 percent in Troy and 23.3 percent in Rochester Hills), Southfield's housing providers are mostly professional management companies with written pet policies, standard forms and a compliance department somewhere above the leasing office. That means an accommodation request is more likely to be processed than argued about, and more likely to leave a paper trail. Ask for the accommodation in writing, ask who decides, and keep the reply: MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) requires the accommodation, and the refusal is what starts the 180-day clock at the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.

### Does Southfield's rental registration ordinance cover my apartment?

Probably not. Rental Registration Ordinance No. 1656 requires all one- and two-family rented or leased dwellings to be registered and inspected every three years, with a $300 registration fee, and failure to comply is a municipal civil infraction punishable by a fine of up to $500. Apartment buildings are a different category. Either way the ordinance is about inspections and housing condition: your right to a reasonable accommodation for an assistance animal comes from MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204(a), and it applies to every landlord regardless of what the city's registration file says.

### Can a Southfield apartment community charge me pet rent for an assistance animal?

Not for an approved assistance animal. A monthly charge attached to the animal is a term or condition imposed because of the disability, which MCL 37.1502(1)(b) prohibits, and the accommodation duty at MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) is what requires the pet policy to bend in the first place. For a pet, by contrast, Michigan does not cap pet rent at all and neither does the city, which is why the distinction between an approved assistance animal and a pet is worth establishing in writing before you sign anything.

### How much can a Southfield landlord hold in deposits?

One and a half months' rent in total under MCL 554.602 (roughly $2,010 at the city's $1,340 median gross rent), and that ceiling includes any refundable pet deposit, because MCL 554.601(d) counts as a security deposit any amount "returnable to the tenant on condition of return of the rental unit by the tenant in condition as required by the rental agreement". Large communities often present a pet deposit as a separate item; the statute cares about the total. The deposit may only be used for actual damage beyond normal habitation and rent or utility arrears (MCL 554.607), and the act cannot be waived (MCL 554.606).

### Does the City of Southfield run the Section 8 voucher programme?

Not any more. The city's Housing Commission page publishes a notice of transfer of the administration of the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher programme, recording that the City of Southfield divested from administering it. If you hold a voucher, work from whatever agency now administers it rather than from the city. The accommodation duty is unaffected either way: it runs against your landlord under MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) and the federal Fair Housing Act, whoever pays part of the rent.

### Which fair housing organisation covers Southfield?

The Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit, which serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties and names Southfield among the communities in its service area. The city funds it: Southfield's Community Development Block Grant page lists "[t]he Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit: Promoting equal and fair housing" among the activities it supports. The centre investigates, including by testing, and can be reached on (313) 963-1274. The enforcement complaint still goes to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights on 1-800-482-3604, within 180 days.

### What documentation will a Southfield leasing office reasonably ask for?

Documentation proportionate to what is unclear. If neither the disability nor the animal's role is apparent, the provider may seek information that reliably establishes both, the approach the Michigan Court of Appeals took in Riverbrook v Fabode. What they cannot demand is an expert witness: the Michigan Supreme Court's order of 29 November 2022 held that neither the Fair Housing Act nor MCL 37.1506a(1)(b) contains such a requirement. Nor can they require registration; the Michigan Department of Civil Rights says its voluntary identification confers no legal privileges or protections and tells anyone required by a landlord to register a service animal to file a complaint. A letter from a licensed professional who has evaluated you, naming the condition and the animal's role, is what a compliance department is actually looking for.

---

Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=michigan-emotional-support-animal%2Fsouthfield