# ESA Letter in Huron, SD: The Word South Dakota Left Out

> Montana's filing clock runs from when a refusal was discovered. SDCL 20-13-31 says only 'occurred' — and in Huron that difference ends claims.

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

## Key facts

- Population: 14,515
- Households renting: 31.7%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Barred as accommodation
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): $20-$40/mo for pets
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## A town that rents at exactly the state rate

Huron has 1,771 renting households out of 5,584 occupied homes, 31.7 percent
on the 2020–2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate. South
Dakota's statewide figure is 31.4 percent. Three-tenths of a point apart,
which puts Huron fifteenth of the state's twenty largest cities by share and
almost exactly on the state's own average.

Median gross rent is $888, about six percent under the $946 state median.
The 2024 Census estimate puts the city at 14,515, eighth in South Dakota.

The number that does not appear in any census table is the one that shapes
this page. Huron's rental stock is dispersed: a great many owners holding a
handful of doors each, few professionally managed buildings, and
accommodation requests that get refused verbally, at a kitchen table, in a
conversation nobody writes down.

## The section, and the word that is not in it

SDCL 20-13-31, entire:

> "Any charge filed under this chapter shall be filed **within one hundred and eighty
> days after the alleged discriminatory or unfair practice occurred.**"

One hundred and eighty days is short. Maine allows 300. Kansas allows six
months. Oregon allows a year. Only Montana matches South Dakota at 180.

But compare Montana's section word for word, because the difference is the whole of this
page. MCA 49-2-501(4)(a) requires a complaint within 180 days after the practice
"**occurred or was discovered.**"

South Dakota's section says "occurred" and stops.

## Why that matters more in Huron than in Sioux Falls

A discovery rule protects the tenant who did not know. It matters most where refusals are
informal, unexplained, and delivered by someone the tenant trusts.

That describes a great deal of Huron. A landlord who says "we can't do animals here,
sorry" in March is not citing a policy or issuing a decision letter. Most tenants take
that as the end of it and move on. Six or eight months later somebody mentions that a
support animal is not a pet, and by then SDCL 20-13-31 has run, not because the tenant
sat on their rights, but because South Dakota's clock never waited for them to learn they
had any.

In a professionally managed Sioux Falls building the refusal arrives on
letterhead with a date on it, and the tenant is far more likely to
understand it as a decision. Same statute, very different practical effect.

## What to do about it, which is unglamorous

Make the record on the day.

- Send a short written note the same day the request is refused, saying what was asked,
  what was said, and when. Text or email is fine; keep the copy.
- If the landlord answers at all, keep that too. A reply that disputes your account still
  fixes the date.
- If there is no reply, the note is still contemporaneous evidence of when the practice
  occurred, which is more than most Huron tenants have.

Nothing in SDCL 20-13-31 requires the refusal to be written. Which means the
burden of establishing **when** it happened lands on whoever kept a record,
and in an informal market that is almost never the landlord.

## Recurring charges are not a reset

If the dispute is a monthly pet charge rather than a flat refusal, each
month's charge is a practice with its own date. That is useful, and it is
not a lifeline for the original refusal.

South Dakota's section has no continuing-violation language. Kansas writes one into K.S.A.
44-1005(i), "unless the act complained of constitutes a continuing pattern or practice of
discrimination in which event it will be from the last act." SDCL 20-13-31 does not. Do not
assume the clock restarts on its own; date each charge and act on the earliest one you
still can.

## After you file

The Division of Human Rights, inside the Department of Labor and Regulation,
investigates under SDCL 20-13-28 to 20-13-35.

One feature to know first. Under SDCL 20-13-35.1, within twenty days of the notice
requiring the landlord to answer, **either party** may elect to have the claim decided in a
civil action instead, and on that election the Division "has no further jurisdiction over
the parties concerning the charge filed." A landlord can move your charge out of the
administrative process. The civil action must then be filed within one year of the
election, and the section makes compensatory damages, injunctive relief, punitive damages
in housing cases and attorneys' fees available there.

## What the underlying claim is

The right comes from **42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B)**, the federal Fair Housing Act's
reasonable-accommodation duty, and from SDCL 20-13-23.7's requirement that good faith
efforts be made to reasonably accommodate a disabled person in housing unless the
accommodation would impose undue hardship. Charges attached to the animal come off under
SDCL 20-13-20(2), which reaches disability discrimination in "the terms, conditions, or
privileges" of a rental.

A Huron landlord may ask for documentation: SDCL 43-32-34 gives them that right in terms,
subject only to the exception where the disability or the need is "readily apparent or
already known" to them, which in a long tenancy is worth raising.

## What a contemporaneous note should contain

It does not need to be formal, and it should not be long.

The date. What you asked for, in the words you used. What the landlord said,
in the words they used. Nothing else.

Send it to yourself if there is nobody else to send it to. A note written
the same day is evidence of when the practice occurred; a recollection
produced eight months later, after somebody explained that support animals
are not pets, is not, and SDCL 20-13-31 measures from the first, not the
second.

**And send it to the landlord, not only to yourself.** A note the other side received is harder to
characterise later as reconstruction. It need not invite an argument: "just so we both have the
date, this is what I asked and what you said today" is enough, and most landlords either confirm it
or ignore it, both of which are useful.

## Before the clock starts at all

Begin with a clinician you already see. Beadle County and the counties
around it have very little of that. The nearest psychiatric capacity for
many Huron residents is in Sioux Falls or Aberdeen, new-patient waits run
into months, and a family practitioner managing medication may not regard a
housing accommodation as their assessment to make. Those are real barriers
and they are why this route fails for people who would otherwise use it.

Where it is closed, a licensed evaluation is that examination arranged on
purpose, someone licensed working out whether a disability exists and
whether this animal answers it, and then either writing the determination or
saying they cannot.

Doing it before you ask is not only better for the request. It is the only
version of this where South Dakota's 180 days, with the word "discovered"
left out of them, never becomes your problem.

## What Huron landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- May not require documentation at all where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known to them, SDCL 43-32-34, second sentence.
- May not discriminate because of disability in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental, SDCL 20-13-20(2). A pet deposit or monthly pet charge on a required accommodation is caught here.
- May not take a security deposit above one month's rent "however denominated", SDCL 43-32-6.1, so a pet fee cannot be stacked on top of a full deposit by renaming it.

**Can:**
- May require reliable supporting documentation where a tenant asserts a disability requiring an assistance animal, SDCL 43-32-34. This is an express statutory right and arguing that a South Dakota landlord may not ask is simply wrong.
- May insist the documentation confirm both the disability and the relationship between the disability and the need for the animal, and that it come from a licensed health care provider who does not operate in South Dakota solely to certify animals, SDCL 43-32-35.
- Must make good faith efforts to reasonably accommodate a person with a disability in housing, unless the accommodation would impose undue hardship, SDCL 20-13-23.7, with punitive damages available under SDCL 20-13-35.1.
- Must return the deposit or give written reasons within twenty-one days of termination, and forfeits all right to withhold anything by failing to, SDCL 43-32-24.
- May evict and claim a damage fee of up to one thousand dollars where a tenant knowingly makes a false claim of disability or knowingly supplies fraudulent documentation, SDCL 43-32-36.
- Is not required by the chapter to modify the property, incur additional expenses or exercise a higher degree of care, SDCL 20-13-21.1. Waiving a no-pets rule asks for none of those things.

## How to get an ESA letter in Huron

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

- [City of Huron](https://www.huronsd.gov/) (city government)
- [SD Division of Human Rights](https://dlr.sd.gov/human_rights/default.aspx) (state civil rights agency)
- [Dakota Plains Legal Services](https://www.dpls.org/) (legal aid)
- [GROW South Dakota](https://www.growsd.org/) (housing nonprofit)

## Frequently asked questions

### How long do I have to file after a Huron landlord refuses?

180 days. SDCL 20-13-31 requires any charge under the human rights chapter to be filed "within one hundred and eighty days after the alleged discriminatory or unfair practice occurred." The charge goes to the Division of Human Rights inside the Department of Labor and Regulation. That is the shortest category of filing window in this corpus, matched only by Montana's.

### Does the clock start when I find out the refusal was unlawful?

No, and this is where South Dakota differs from its neighbour. Montana's MCA 49-2-501(4)(a) runs 180 days from when the practice "occurred or was discovered." SDCL 20-13-31 has no discovery language at all. It says "occurred" and stops. A tenant who was refused in February and only understood the position in October has a problem the statute does not solve.

### The refusal was verbal. How do I even date it?

You date it as best you can, and you make the record now rather than later. Send a short written note the same day confirming what was said and when, keep the copy, and if the landlord replies at all keep that too. Nothing in SDCL 20-13-31 requires a written refusal, which means the burden of establishing when the practice occurred lands on whoever kept a record.

### What if the landlord keeps charging me every month?

Then each charge is a practice with its own date. That does not extend a window that has already closed on the original refusal, and South Dakota's section contains no continuing-violation language of the kind Kansas has at K.S.A. 44-1005(i). Treat every month's charge as separately dated and do not rely on the clock resetting.

### What happens after I file?

The Division investigates under SDCL 20-13-28 to 20-13-35. There is a fork worth knowing about first, though: SDCL 20-13-35.1 opens a twenty-day window after the landlord is told to answer, during which either side may take the claim out of the agency and into a lawsuit. Once that election is made the Division loses jurisdiction over the parties, and the civil action has to be filed within a year.

### Can a Huron landlord ask for documentation?

Yes, SDCL 43-32-34 gives them that right expressly, and bars the request only where the disability or the disability-related need is readily apparent or already known to them. In a town where a landlord may have rented to you for a decade the second exception is worth raising, but it is not a substitute for having documentation ready.

### Should there be a pet deposit at all?

Not where the animal is a genuine accommodation. There is no South Dakota sentence banning the charge; it falls away under SDCL 20-13-20(2), which reaches disability discrimination in "the terms, conditions, or privileges" of a rental, and under the federal Fair Housing Act. SDCL 43-32-6.1 separately caps everything held at one month's rent, however denominated.

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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=south-dakota-emotional-support-animal%2Fhuron