# ESA Letter in Casselton, ND: The Three-House Exemption

> NDCC 14-02.5-09(1) switches off North Dakota's disability housing rules for some small landlords. A Casselton ESA letter has to work either way.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/north-dakota-emotional-support-animal/casselton/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-09-05
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 2,486
- Households renting: 34.8%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): ESA excluded, ch. 47-16
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): No statutory monthly cap
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The paragraph a small landlord's adviser reads first

Most of North Dakota's housing law is written with apartment companies in
view. One paragraph is not, and in a Cass County city of 2,486 people it is
the paragraph worth knowing.

**NDCC 14-02.5-09(1)** switches the Housing Discrimination Act off for a particular kind of
landlord: an individual renting out a single-family house they own, without professional help. The
run of sections it disapplies, "Sections 14-02.5-02 through 14-02.5-08", includes **14-02.5-06**,
the disability section, and 14-02.5-06(3)(b) inside it is North Dakota's reasonable accommodation
duty. If the exemption holds, the state accommodation claim goes with it.

That is a genuinely serious provision and it deserves to be read rather than
summarised. Read closely, it also turns out to be much harder to keep than
it looks.

## Five conditions, and every one of them has to hold

> "Sections 14-02.5-02 through 14-02.5-08 do not apply to the sale or rental of a **single-family
> house** sold or rented by the owner if the owner **does not own more than three single-family
> houses** at any one time … In addition, the house must be sold or rented **without the use of the
> sales or rental facilities or services of a licensed real estate broker, agent, or realtor**, or
> of a person in the business of selling or renting dwellings … or the publication, posting, or
> mailing of a notice, statement, or advertisement prohibited by section 14-02.5-03. **The exemption
> provided in this subsection applies only to one sale or rental in a twenty-four-month period, if
> the owner was not the most recent resident of the house at the time of the sale or rental.**"

Count the gates.

**A single-family house.** Not a duplex, not a converted building with two units, not an apartment.

**Not more than three of them.** The cap is on houses owned at any one time, and it counts an
interest in a house as well as outright ownership.

**No broker, no agent, no realtor** — and no "person in the business of selling or renting
dwellings" either. A property manager handling the listing and the lease is the ordinary way this
condition gets broken without anyone noticing.

**No prohibited advertisement.** Ordinary advertising is fine; it is a notice, statement or
advertisement prohibited by 14-02.5-03 (the chapter's discriminatory-advertising section), that
costs the exemption. Which produces a neat result: a landlord who advertises discriminatorily
loses the exemption that would have protected the discrimination.

**One transaction in twenty-four months**, and only where the owner was not the most recent
resident of the house. A landlord who rented the house out last spring cannot use the exemption on
this spring's tenant.

Miss any single one and the exemption is not available. It is a narrow door, not a general
licence for small landlords, and describing it as "private landlords are exempt in North Dakota"
gets it wrong in five separate ways.

## The disqualifier that has nothing to do with your house

There is a sixth condition, and it is the one that catches people, because
it is about property somewhere else entirely.

The same subsection defines who is "in the business of selling or renting dwellings," and the
third limb is a status test:

> "c. **Is the owner of any dwelling designed or intended for occupancy by, or occupied by, five or
> more families.**"

An owner of any five-or-more-family building is in the business, full stop.
It does not matter that the building is in Fargo and the house is in
Casselton, or that the house is rented on a handshake. The exemption is
unavailable to that owner at all. The other two limbs are volume tests:
three or more transactions as principal in the preceding twelve months, or
two or more as an agent.

One more thing to keep straight. A **different** exemption sits at
14-02.5-09(2), with a different threshold and a different range of sections.
It is not this one, and merging the two is the standard error in writing
about this chapter.

## What survives when the exemption does hold

Suppose it holds. A tenant in Casselton is not left with nothing, and the
two things that remain are the two most useful things.

**The federal Fair Housing Act still applies on its own terms.** Its exemptions are drawn
differently from North Dakota's and are not switched on and off by 14-02.5-09, and 42 U.S.C.
§ 3604(f)(3)(B) is the accommodation duty in federal words.

**And chapter 47-16 is not part of chapter 14-02.5 at all.** This is the part that gets missed.
14-02.5-09 exempts from sections of the Housing Discrimination Act. The landlord-tenant code is a
separate chapter of a separate title, and it carries no equivalent exemption. So **NDCC
47-16-07.1(2)**, which allows a pet security deposit only for an animal "that is not a service
animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation
under fair housing laws," is not disapplied. Neither is **NDCC 47-16-07.5**, the section that says
what documentation a landlord may require and who may write it.

An exempt Casselton landlord is still a landlord under chapter 47-16.

## Casselton's figures, and how firmly to hold them

The 2024 Census estimate puts Casselton at 2,486 people, nineteenth of North
Dakota's twenty largest cities. The 2020–2024 American Community Survey
five-year estimate counts 433 of its 1,245 occupied homes as rented, roughly
34.8 percent, with a median gross rent estimated at $814.

Both figures are estimates with wide margins at this sample size; the rent
carries roughly ±$184 either way. They are the best numbers that exist for
the city and they are not precise enough to build an argument on. Where a
calculation matters, the statewide median gross rent of $954 is the firmer
anchor.

For anything official, Cass County's offices are in Fargo, and SENDCAA is
the community action agency covering Cass County. A housing discrimination
complaint goes to the North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights
within one year of the last date of harm.

## Building a file that works on either side of the line

Here is the practical problem with everything above: a tenant usually cannot
tell which side of 14-02.5-09(1) their landlord falls on. You do not know
how many houses they own, whether they rented another one eleven months ago,
or whether the fourplex on the edge of town is theirs. The answer may not
surface until a lawyer looks.

So the sensible move is to prepare a request that does not depend on the
answer. A request that rests only on the state accommodation duty is a
request that fails if the exemption holds. A request built on documentation
that satisfies **47-16-07.5** (a physician or medical professional
confirming the disability *and* the relationship between the disability and
the need for the accommodation) works under the Housing Discrimination Act,
works under the federal Act, and works under chapter 47-16, which the
exemption never touched.

Ask a clinician who already treats you first. It is the cheapest route and
the strongest one, because someone with a history with you can make both
findings without reconstructing anything. Its friction is real: Cass
County's specialist capacity is concentrated around Fargo, waits are common,
and a clinician who has seen you twice may decline to make a disability
finding rather than write one they cannot stand behind.

Where that road is closed, a licensed evaluation is the same appointment
arranged on purpose, someone licensed decides whether a disability exists
and whether this animal answers it, and records what they found either way.
A no is a possible outcome, and a provider for whom it is not is selling a
document rather than a judgment.

The exemption may apply to your landlord or it may not. The document that
survives that question is the one to have.

## What Casselton landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- May not refuse a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where the accommodation may be necessary to afford an individual with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling: NDCC 14-02.5-06(3)(b).
- May not discriminate because of disability in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental, or in the services and facilities provided with it: NDCC 14-02.5-06(2).
- May not charge a pet security deposit for a service animal or companion animal required by a tenant with a disability as a reasonable accommodation under fair housing laws, NDCC 47-16-07.1(2) excludes that animal by name.
- May not demand or receive security, however denominated, in excess of one month's rent, except for a felony-conviction incentive or where a judgment has been entered for violating a previous rental agreement: NDCC 47-16-07.1(1).
- May not require that the documentation come from a North Dakota clinician. The statute excludes a provider who operates in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals; it does not require an in-state one, NDCC 47-16-07.5.
- May not claim the thousand-dollar damage fee or the eviction right in NDCC 47-16-07.6(2) on suspicion alone. Both arise only if the tenant pleads guilty to or is convicted of the subsection 1 infraction.

**Can:**
- May require reliable supporting documentation where the dwelling is subject to a no-pets policy (but not where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known), NDCC 47-16-07.5.
- Must itemize any part of a deposit kept and deliver or mail it within thirty days after termination of the lease and delivery of possession, and is liable for treble damages for money withheld without reasonable justification, NDCC 47-16-07.1(3)–(4).
- May still apply the deposit to damage actually caused by an animal or by the tenant's negligence, NDCC 47-16-07.1(3)(a). The carve-out removes the charge in advance, not the bill for real damage.
- May decline where the tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of others or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, NDCC 14-02.5-06(6).
- Is outside the state accommodation duty only in the narrow cases NDCC 14-02.5-09 describes: an owner-occupied dwelling of not more than four families, or a single-family house let by an owner of no more than three, without a broker, once in twenty-four months. The federal Fair Housing Act and chapter 47-16 are unaffected by that exemption.

## How to get an ESA letter in Casselton

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

- [City of Casselton](https://www.casselton.com/) (city government)
- [Cass County](https://www.casscountynd.gov/) (county government)
- [SENDCAA (Community Action, Region V)](https://www.sendcaa.org/) (community action agency)
- [High Plains Fair Housing Center](https://www.highplainsfhc.org/) (fair housing nonprofit)

## Frequently asked questions

### My landlord owns two houses in Casselton and rents them himself. Does state fair housing law still apply?

It depends on five conditions holding at once. NDCC 14-02.5-09(1) exempts the rental of a single-family house by an owner who owns not more than three of them, rented without a licensed real estate broker, agent or realtor or a person in the business of renting dwellings, without a notice or advertisement prohibited by 14-02.5-03, and only for one sale or rental in a twenty-four-month period where the owner was not the most recent resident. Fail any one and the exemption is unavailable.

### He rented the same house out last year. Does the exemption still cover this tenancy?

The subsection says the exemption applies only to one sale or rental in a twenty-four-month period, so a second letting inside that window is outside it. The same sentence adds the condition that the owner was not the most recent resident of the house at the time of the sale or rental, which excludes an owner who moved out and immediately let the property.

### He listed the house online and used a property manager. Does that matter?

Both points matter, for different reasons. The exemption requires the letting to happen without the sales or rental facilities or services of a licensed real estate broker, agent or realtor, or of a person in the business of selling or renting dwellings, so a manager running the listing and the lease can take the exemption away. Advertising itself is not the problem; publishing a notice, statement or advertisement prohibited by NDCC 14-02.5-03, the discriminatory advertising section, is.

### He also owns an apartment building somewhere else. Does that affect the house he rents to me?

Yes, and this is the condition people miss because it is about other property. NDCC 14-02.5-09(1)(c) makes a person in the business of selling or renting dwellings if the person is the owner of any dwelling designed or intended for occupancy by, or occupied by, five or more families. An owner in that position cannot use the exemption at all. Two further limbs count transactions rather than buildings, catching an owner who has been principal in three or more lettings or sales within the last twelve months, or an agent in two or more.

### If the exemption does apply, do I have any protection left?

Two things survive. The federal Fair Housing Act applies on its own terms, with its own exemptions and its own advertising rule, and 42 U.S.C. section 3604(f)(3)(B) is the accommodation duty in federal words. Separately, chapter 47-16 is not part of chapter 14-02.5, so NDCC 47-16-07.1(2)'s pet deposit carve-out and NDCC 47-16-07.5's documentation rule are not switched off by 14-02.5-09 at all.

### Is this the same as the owner-occupied exemption people talk about?

No. A separate exemption sits at NDCC 14-02.5-09(2) with a different threshold and a different range of sections, and merging the two is the standard error in describing this chapter. Subsection 1 is about single-family houses and an owner of not more than three of them; the two provisions should be read and cited apart.

### How solid are Casselton's rent and renter figures?

They are estimates from a small sample rather than counts. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate puts 433 of 1,245 occupied homes in renters' hands and median gross rent near $814, with a margin of roughly $184 either way, which is wide enough that the city should not be ranked against others on it. For any comparison, North Dakota's statewide median of $954 and 37.1 percent renter share are firmer.

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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=north-dakota-emotional-support-animal%2Fcasselton