# ESA Letter in Rochester, MN: No Local Commission, One Clear Route

> Rochester has no human rights commission, which makes filing simpler than it looks. What Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 strips out of an Olmsted County lease.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/minnesota-emotional-support-animal/rochester/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-11
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 123,624
- Households renting: 34.9%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Varies by building
- 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)

## Rochester built its public housing fifteen years behind the rest of Minnesota

Olmsted County's housing authority tells this on its own history page. "The
first public housing constructed in Rochester was in 1983, about 15 years later
than other communities in the state and region had developed their public
housing." Before that, the county writes, "the private sector provided much of
the subsidized housing in Rochester through the Section 236 and Section 8 New
Construction programs." The first project the authority itself owned was
Homestead Green, a 30-unit townhome development in southeast Rochester that
opened in 1983.

That history explains the shape of the market. Rochester's below-market housing
ran through private owners for decades longer than comparable Minnesota cities,
and a privately managed lease is exactly where pet fees, pet deposits and
monthly pet rent live.

Rochester is Minnesota's third largest city, with 123,624 residents on the
Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 estimate. Of its 51,131 occupied homes, 17,861 are
rented, 34.9 percent, on the 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year
estimate. That puts it among the eleven cities of the state's twenty largest that
sit above the 27.8 percent statewide rate.

## The section of Minnesota law that says "support animal" out loud

Minnesota wrote support animals into its landlord-tenant chapter under their own
name. Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 is headed "Service and Support Animal
Documentation," and subd. 1(c) defines a support animal as one that "provides
emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptoms or effects of
a person's disability" and that "does not need to be trained to perform a
specific disability-related task."

Training is off the table before a leasing agent can raise it. Subd. 1(d) puts a
prospective tenant inside the word "tenant," so protection attaches while the
application is still open.

The disability test underneath sits at Minn. Stat. § 363A.03, subd. 12.
Minnesota asks whether an impairment "materially limits" a major life activity,
worded more broadly than the federal "substantially limits," and it expressly
reaches an impairment that is "episodic or in remission."

## City hall runs twenty-one boards, and none of them takes your complaint

Rochester publishes a full roster of its boards, commissions and committees.
There are twenty-one: Airport, Board of Appeals, Charter, Citizens Advisory on
Transit, Ethical Practices Board, Fire Civil Service, Heritage Preservation,
International Relations, Joint Airport Zoning, Library Board, Mayo Civic Center
and CVB governance, Music Board, Park Board, Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory,
Planning and Zoning, Police Civil Service, Police Policy Oversight, Public
Utility Board, Rochester Olmsted Youth Council, Sustainability and Resiliency,
and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Not one is a human rights or civil rights commission. The two "civil service"
bodies are personnel boards for police and fire hiring, not places to bring a
discrimination charge. Olmsted County's own published roster carries no such
body either. That looks like a gap. For your purposes it removes a hazard.

## The one-shot choice that Rochester renters never have to make

Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3 gives a tenant one year and three ways to spend
it: a civil action, a charge with a local commission, or a charge with the
Commissioner of Human Rights. In the few Minnesota cities that operate their own
agency, that choice is irreversible, Minn. Stat. § 363A.07, subd. 3 provides
that the "exercise of such choice in filing a charge with one agency shall
preclude the option of filing the same charge with the other agency."

Because Rochester has no local body to file with, that provision has nothing to
bite on here. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights is the route, with one
year to report and a helpline on 1-833-454-0148. HUD is a separate forum on its
own clock, accepting a housing complaint within one year under 42 U.S.C.
§ 3610(a)(1)(A)(i).

## Three lines that come off the lease

Subd. 3(a) is where the money is. A landlord "must not require a tenant with a
reasonable accommodation under this section to pay an additional fee, charge, or
deposit for the service or support animal." Subd. 1(f) defines the accommodation
as waiving a "no-pets or pet-fee policy," which is why the pricing falls along
with the ban.

So the one-time pet fee goes. The refundable pet deposit goes. The monthly pet
rent goes, because a recurring charge is still a charge. What survives is
liability for damage the animal actually does, assessed on evidence at the end,
not collected on suspicion at the start.

Minnesota sets no ceiling at all on an ordinary security deposit, which is
precisely why the fee ban rather than a dollar limit protects a tenant. That
ordinary deposit still applies, earns one percent simple non-compounded interest
a year under Minn. Stat. § 504B.178, subd. 2, and must come back with that
interest or a written reason for withholding within three weeks of the tenancy
ending.

Subd. 3(b) requires a landlord who charges pet fees to state in the lease that
they cannot be charged for a service or support animal. Where that sentence is
missing, subd. 3(c) lets a tenant sue to recover fees already paid under the pet
policy, on showing they would have requested an accommodation and "would likely
have received" one. Its absence can be worth money.

## Who Minnesota permits to sign the letter

Subd. 1(e) closes the list. It reaches doctors licensed by the Board of Medical
Practice (chapter 147), physician assistants (147A), nurses and psychologists
(148), mental health professionals (148B), social workers (148E) and counselors
(148F). Anyone in those professions holding an out-of-state licence counts too,
but only if they already have an existing treatment relationship with you.

The subdivision then shuts the side entrance: "A licensed professional does not
include any person who operates primarily to provide certification for a service
or support animal." A vendor selling certificates is disqualified by what it
sells. No card, vest or online registry carries weight in a Rochester lease
file.

What the landlord gets is narrow. Subd. 2(a) allows a request for documentation
but forbids it where the disability or the need is "readily apparent or already
known." Subd. 2(b) confines that documentation to the disability and its
relationship to the need for the animal, and bars a landlord from requiring the
tenant "to disclose or provide access to medical records or medical providers or
provide any other information or documentation of a person's physical or mental
disability."

## Statutes a landlord may quote at you by mistake

Search Minnesota law for animals and housing and § 256C.025, subd. 4 comes up
early. It mentions housing. It says a person "shall not be required to pay extra
compensation." It also confines itself to a person "totally or partially blind,
or person who is deaf, or person with a physical disability" who has a service
dog. A tenant whose disability is a mental health condition sits outside it.

The 2025 legislature added subd. 5 to that section for service dogs in training
under an organisation accredited by Assistance Dogs International or the
International Guide Dog Federation, and there a landlord may require written
certification from that organisation. It is the one corner of Minnesota law
where a housing provider may demand outside certification, and it has nothing to
do with an emotional support animal.

Minn. Stat. § 504B.114, enacted in 2023, also bars a landlord from requiring
declawing or devocalization, and makes an offending lease provision "void and
unenforceable."

## Getting help without leaving Olmsted County

Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services keeps a Rochester office at 903 West
Center Street, Suite 230, on (507) 292-0080. HOME Line runs a free tenant
hotline for Minnesota renters and is usually the quickest first call when you
cannot tell whether a formal charge is proportionate.

If your housing is subsidised, Olmsted County HRA administers the Housing Choice
Voucher program on 507-328-7150, and its voucher waiting list is currently
closed.

If nothing else resolves it, Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 1 lets you bring a
civil action "directly to district court" with no charge filed and nothing to
exhaust first, and subd. 6 gives either side a jury. Subd. 8(a) says the court
"shall order" compensatory damages "including mental anguish or suffering, in an
amount up to three times the actual damages sustained." Subd. 4 lets the court
appoint an attorney and authorise the action to be commenced without payment of
fees, costs or security.

Most Rochester disputes never travel that far. They end with a leasing office
deleting a pet-rent line after somebody reads one section of the landlord-tenant
chapter.

## What Rochester landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- A landlord may not charge an additional fee, charge or deposit for an approved service or support animal (Minn. Stat. § 504B.113, subd. 3(a)). Pet rent, pet deposits and one-time pet fees all fall away; liability for actual damage the animal causes does not.
- A landlord may not require a tenant to hand over medical records, give access to medical providers, or supply any other documentation of the disability itself (§ 504B.113, subd. 2(b)). The letter confirms the disability and the need for the animal; it does not open the file.
- Cannot rely on a certificate bought from a registry website. Anyone "who operates primarily to provide certification for a service or support animal" is excluded from the statutory list by name (§ 504B.113, subd. 1(e)), so such a certificate is not documentation from a licensed professional.
- A support animal does not have to be trained to do any task (§ 504B.113, subd. 1(c)(2)). A landlord may not refuse the accommodation for want of training records.
- A landlord may not make declawing or devocalization a condition of keeping an animal, advertise to discourage applicants who refuse, or write the requirement into a lease; such a clause is void and unenforceable (Minn. Stat. § 504B.114).
- Cannot charge for the animal or refuse the accommodation without exposure to a claim of discrimination in the terms, conditions or privileges of a rental under Minn. Stat. § 363A.09, subd. 1(2).
- A landlord may not coerce, intimidate, threaten or interfere with a tenant for asking (Minn. Stat. § 363A.09, subd. 6).

**Can:**
- A landlord may ask for supporting documentation, but not where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known to the landlord (§ 504B.113, subd. 2(a)).
- The letter must come from a licensed professional on the statutory list: a physician, physician assistant, nurse, psychologist, mental health professional, social worker or counselor licensed in Minnesota, or the same professions licensed in another state where there is an existing treatment relationship (§ 504B.113, subd. 1(e)).
- The protection covers a prospective tenant as well as a current one, because "tenant" is defined to include both (§ 504B.113, subd. 1(d)). The request can be made during the application.
- A landlord that charges pet fees at all must disclose in the lease that they cannot be charged for a service or support animal (§ 504B.113, subd. 3(b)), and a tenant who paid because that disclosure was missing may sue to get the money back (subd. 3(c)).
- A security deposit must be returned with one percent annual interest, or a written statement of the specific reason for withholding it furnished, within three weeks of the tenancy ending, and the landlord carries the burden of proving the reason (Minn. Stat. § 504B.178, subds. 2, 3).
- May set an ordinary security deposit at any amount, because Minnesota caps none. That is precisely why the fee ban rather than a dollar ceiling is what protects a tenant with a support animal.
- A tenant who knowingly misrepresents a disability or supplies fraudulent documentation can have the application or the animal request denied, and can face eviction for a lease breach (§ 504B.113, subds. 4-5).

## How to get an ESA letter in Rochester

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Rochester. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for Minnesota 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 Minnesota 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 Rochester. (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 Rochester

- [Minnesota Department of Human Rights](https://mn.gov/mdhr/) (state agency)
- [Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Rochester office](https://www.smrls.org/locations) (legal aid)
- [HOME Line, free Minnesota tenant hotline](https://homelinemn.org/) (tenant org)
- [Olmsted County HRA, Housing Choice Voucher program](https://www.olmstedcounty.gov/residents/services-individuals-families/housing/rental-assistance/housing-choice-voucher) (housing authority)

## Frequently asked questions

### Where does a Rochester renter file a housing discrimination complaint?

With the state, or with HUD, or in court, not with the city. Rochester's published roster of boards, commissions and committees lists 21 bodies and none of them is a human rights or civil rights commission, and Olmsted County's roster does not list one either. That means the Minnesota Department of Human Rights is the administrative route here, on the one-year clock in Minn. Stat. § 363A.28, subd. 3. Its helpline is 1-833-454-0148. HUD is a separate forum with its own one-year window under 42 U.S.C. § 3610(a)(1)(A)(i).

### I read that Olmsted County has a human rights commission. Which is right?

The two sources disagree and you should treat the city as having none. The Minnesota Department of Human Rights publishes a statewide directory of local human rights commissions that lists "Olmstead County". That is MDHR's own spelling. Olmsted County's current published roster of boards and commissions does not show any such body. Either way, the City of Rochester's own 21-body roster has no human rights commission, so Rochester is not a place to file a charge. Take the complaint to MDHR.

### Does filing with the state cost me the chance to file somewhere else in Rochester?

Not in practice, and that is unusual. Minn. Stat. § 363A.07, subd. 3 says that the "exercise of such choice in filing a charge with one agency shall preclude the option of filing the same charge with the other agency", a real trap in the handful of Minnesota cities that run their own civil rights agency. Rochester has no local agency to file with, so there is no second agency for that rule to shut. You still keep the separate court route: Minn. Stat. § 363A.33, subd. 1 lets a person go "directly to district court" without filing a charge at all.

### My Rochester building charges pet rent every month. Does the accommodation stop it?

Yes, once granted. Minn. Stat. § 504B.113, subd. 3(a) says a landlord "must not require a tenant with a reasonable accommodation under this section to pay an additional fee, charge, or deposit for the service or support animal." A monthly per-animal amount is a charge no matter how the office labels it. Ask for the line to be deleted at the point the accommodation is approved. You remain responsible for damage the animal actually causes, which is settled on evidence at the end rather than collected in advance.

### What if my Rochester lease never mentions that support animals are exempt from pet fees?

That silence may be worth money to you. Minn. Stat. § 504B.113, subd. 3(b) requires a landlord that charges pet fees to disclose in the lease that those fees cannot be charged for a service or support animal. Where the disclosure is missing, subd. 3(c) lets a tenant sue to recover fees, charges or deposits already paid under the pet policy, on showing they would have asked for an accommodation and "would likely have received" one had the disclosure been there. Check the pet clause in your lease for that sentence.

### Can my Rochester landlord ask my doctor for my records?

No. Minn. Stat. § 504B.113, subd. 2(b) limits the landlord to documentation from a licensed professional confirming the disability and the relationship between the disability and the need for the animal, and states that the landlord "must not require the tenant to disclose or provide access to medical records or medical providers or provide any other information or documentation of a person's physical or mental disability." Under subd. 2(a) the landlord may not ask for documentation at all where the disability or the disability-related need is "readily apparent or already known" to it.

### Is there anywhere in Rochester to get help before this becomes a legal fight?

Two places to start. Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services staffs an office in the city: 903 West Center Street, Suite 230, telephone (507) 292-0080. For a quick check on whether what your building told you matches the statute, HOME Line's tenant hotline is free and open to renters anywhere in Minnesota. If you are in or applying for subsidized housing, Olmsted County HRA administers the Housing Choice Voucher program on 507-328-7150; its voucher waiting list is currently closed.

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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=minnesota-emotional-support-animal%2Frochester