# ESA Letter in Rugby, ND: When There Is No No-Pets Policy

> NDCC 47-16-07.5 is written for buildings with a no pets policy. A Rugby ESA letter in a pets-allowed building runs on 14-02.5-06(3)(b) instead.

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

## Key facts

- Population: 2,422
- Households renting: 25.7%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Carve-out needs no policy
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Argued under 14-02.5-06(2)
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## Read the first line of the statute before the rest of it

North Dakota's assistance-animal documentation section opens with a
condition, and almost everyone reads straight past it on the way to the
interesting part.

> "A landlord may require reliable supporting documentation be provided by a tenant of **a rental
> dwelling that is subject to a no pets policy**, if the tenant asserts a disability requiring a
> service animal or assistance animal be allowed as an accommodation on the rented premises under
> any provision of law."

**NDCC 47-16-07.5** is not a rule about assistance animals generally. It is a rule about
assistance animals in a building that bans pets. The whole section (who may write the
documentation, what the documentation must confirm), hangs off that opening description.

Which raises a question that matters in a town of 2,422 people, the smallest
of North Dakota's twenty largest cities, where a good deal of the rental
stock is houses and small buildings rather than managed complexes: what
governs when the building never had a no-pets policy to begin with?

## What a scope clause does, and does not do

A scope clause describes the situation a section addresses. Where the
situation is absent, the section has nothing to work on. It does not flip
into its opposite.

So it is wrong to read the opening line as "a landlord in a pets-allowed building may never ask
for anything." The retrieved North Dakota text simply does not address that landlord. What it
does mean is more specific and more useful: **47-16-07.5 is not the source of a demand for
documentation in a building without a no-pets policy**, because the permission it grants is
written for a different building.

And it means the tenant's rights in that building come from somewhere else
entirely.

## The duty that never mentioned a policy

**NDCC 14-02.5-06(3)(b)** (the Housing Discrimination Act's accommodation duty) carries no such
condition:

> "**A refusal to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices, or services if the
> accommodation may be necessary to afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a
> dwelling**"

Look at what it applies to: *rules, policies, practices, or services*. Not
one rule. Any of them. A no-pets policy is only the most obvious example,
and a Rugby tenant whose building allows pets is usually up against a
different rule instead: a weight limit, a breed restriction, a one-animal
cap, a monthly pet charge, a rule about which units may have animals at all.

Every one of those is a rule, policy or practice within the subsection. The
accommodation is an exception to whichever one blocks the animal.

Its honest other half is 14-02.5-06(6): nothing requires a dwelling to be made available where the
tenancy "would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals whose
tenancy would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others." That is about an
evidenced risk from a specific animal, not a general policy about pets.

## Two more provisions that never needed the policy either

**The pet deposit carve-out does not depend on a no-pets policy.** NDCC 47-16-07.1(2) allows a pet
security deposit for keeping "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." Nothing in
that sentence asks what the building's pet rules are. A pets-allowed building that charges every
animal a deposit still may not charge it for an animal the subsection describes.

**The terms-and-conditions prohibition does not either.** NDCC 14-02.5-06(2) makes it unlawful to
discriminate against an individual "in the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a
dwelling … because of a disability of that individual." A pets-allowed building that adds thirty
dollars a month for the animal is applying a term of the tenancy, and if the animal is there
because of a disability that term is imposed because of the disability. Behind it stands
42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B).

So the tenant in a pets-allowed Rugby building has not lost anything by
falling outside 47-16-07.5. The accommodation duty, the deposit carve-out
and the fee argument are all intact.

## The catch, and it points the same way

Here is the part that surprises people. Falling outside 47-16-07.5 does not
mean documentation matters less. In some ways it matters more.

Read the accommodation duty again and find the load-bearing word: the accommodation must be one
that "**may be necessary** to afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a
dwelling." Necessity is not presumed and it is not established by asserting it. A landlord who
refuses a bare, unsupported request is not obviously refusing a *necessary* accommodation, and a
tenant with nothing on paper has no way to show otherwise.

In a no-pets building, at least North Dakota tells you what will satisfy the
landlord. 47-16-07.5 spells out the documentation, so a tenant knows exactly
what to produce. Outside that building, the standard is the general one, and
the same file is what proves the case.

That file looks the same either way, which is convenient: a physician or
medical professional confirming the disability, and confirming the
relationship between the disability and the need for this accommodation. Two
findings. The section that describes them is written for no-pets buildings;
the findings themselves are what the accommodation duty needs everywhere.

One more practical point. Pet policies change. A building that allows
animals today may adopt a no-pets rule at the next lease renewal or under
new ownership, and on that day, 47-16-07.5 does apply, and the landlord may
require the documentation it describes. A tenant who already holds it is not
scrambling.

## Rugby's figures, and where the nearest desk is

The 2024 Census estimate puts Rugby at 2,422 people, twentieth and smallest
of the state's twenty largest cities, in Pierce County. The 2020–2024
American Community Survey five-year estimate counts 318 of its 1,237
occupied homes as rented, about 25.7 percent, with median gross rent
estimated at $853.

Hold those loosely. Three hundred-odd renting households is a small sample,
and the margins around both figures are wide enough that neither should be
treated as a precise fact about the town. The statewide comparison (122,979
renting households out of 331,063 occupied homes, 37.1 percent, at a median
gross rent of $954) is the reliable frame.

Pierce County's offices are in Rugby, and the community action agency
covering Pierce County is CAP Region II in Minot. Legal Services of North
Dakota has an office in Minot as well, and the High Plains Fair Housing
Center in Grand Forks is the state's fair housing centre. Complaints go to
the North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights within one year of the
last date of harm.

## What produces the two findings

Ask a clinician who already treats you. That route is cheapest, and it is
strongest, because the relationship is the thing a document cannot fake.

Its friction in Pierce County is not hypothetical. Independent practices out
here are few, most of North Dakota's specialist mental-health capacity sits
in Minot, Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks, waits run long, and a clinician
who has seen you twice may quite reasonably decline to make a disability
finding rather than sign one they cannot support.

Where that is where it lands, a licensed evaluation is the deliberate
version of the same appointment: a licensed professional determines whether
a disability exists, determines whether this animal answers it, and records
what they concluded, including no, when that is the answer. That possibility
is the point. A document from a process that could have said no is worth
something; a document from a process that could not is the certificate trade
47-16-07.5's exclusion clause was aimed at.

A no-pets policy decides which North Dakota section is speaking to you. It
does not decide whether somebody has to have looked.

## What Rugby 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 Rugby

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Rugby. 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 Rugby. (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 Rugby

- [City of Rugby](https://www.cityofrugbynd.com/) (city government)
- [Pierce County, North Dakota](https://www.piercecountynd.gov/) (county government)
- [Community Action Partnership Region II (Minot)](https://www.capnd.org/programsandinitiatives/regions/minot/) (community action agency)
- [Legal Services of North Dakota](https://lsnd.org/) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### My Rugby building allows pets. Does NDCC 47-16-07.5 apply to me at all?

The section opens by describing a tenant of a rental dwelling that is subject to a no pets policy. That description is the situation it addresses, so in a building with no such policy the permission it grants a landlord to require documentation has nothing to attach to. It does not convert into a prohibition either; the retrieved North Dakota text simply does not speak to that landlord.

### Then what gives me the right to keep the animal in a pets-allowed building?

NDCC 14-02.5-06(3)(b), which makes discrimination include a refusal to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices, or services if the accommodation may be necessary to afford the individual equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. It mentions no policy of any particular kind and no animal at all. Its honest limit is 14-02.5-06(6), which does not require a dwelling to be made available where the tenancy would be a direct threat to health or safety or result in substantial physical damage to the property of others.

### The building allows pets but has a weight limit and charges pet rent. Does any of that fall away?

Both are rules of the building, and the accommodation duty is an exception to rules. The weight limit is addressed through 14-02.5-06(3)(b) directly. The monthly charge is addressed through 14-02.5-06(2), which bars discrimination in the terms, conditions, or privileges of a rental because of an individual's disability, and through 42 U.S.C. section 3604(f)(3)(B). Neither argument depends on the building having banned animals.

### Does the pet deposit carve-out require a no-pets policy?

No. The condition in NDCC 47-16-07.1(2) is about the animal rather than the building: the pet security deposit is available for keeping "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." Nothing in it asks what the pet rules are, so a building that welcomes animals and charges each one a deposit still may not charge it for an animal the subsection excludes.

### If the section does not apply, does that mean I do not need documentation?

It means the opposite in practice. The accommodation duty applies where the accommodation may be necessary to afford equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, and necessity has to be shown rather than asserted. In a no-pets building the statute at least tells you what will satisfy a landlord. Outside one the standard is the general accommodation standard, and the same file, confirming a disability and its relationship to the need, is what makes the case.

### What if my landlord adopts a no-pets policy at renewal?

Then NDCC 47-16-07.5 is squarely in play and the landlord may require the reliable supporting documentation it describes: a physician or medical professional, not one who operates in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals, confirming the disability and the relationship between the disability and the need for the accommodation. Pet policies change with ownership and with lease renewals, and a tenant already holding that document is not caught out by the change.

### Rugby is the state's smallest city of the twenty. Where is the nearest help?

Pierce County's offices are in Rugby itself. Community action for the county comes from CAP Region II in Minot, and Legal Services of North Dakota has a Minot office. The High Plains Fair Housing Center in Grand Forks is the state's fair housing centre, and a housing discrimination complaint goes to the North Dakota Department of Labor and Human Rights within one year of the last date of harm.

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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%2Frugby