Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Letters in Watertown, SD

The most average rental market in South Dakota

Watertown has 3,611 renting households out of 10,394 occupied homes, 34.7 percent on the 2020–2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, above the 31.4 percent statewide figure and eleventh of the state’s twenty largest cities by share.

Median gross rent is $942. The South Dakota median is $946. Four dollars apart: Watertown is closer to the state average rent than any other city on this site.

That ordinariness is worth stating because the charge this page is about is ordinary too. It shows up on Watertown leases the way it shows up everywhere, as a line item with a name chosen to sit outside the rules.

The two words that decide it

SDCL 43-32-6.1:

“Any deposit of money, the function of which is to secure the performance of a residential rental agreement or any part of such an agreement, shall be deemed to be a security deposit. A lessor of residential premises may not demand or receive a security deposit, however denominated, in an amount or value in excess of one month’s rent except that a larger deposit may be agreed upon between the lessor and the lessee where special conditions pose a danger to maintenance of the premises.”

Two mechanisms, and they work together.

The first sentence looks at function, not label. Money held to secure performance of the rental agreement or any part of it is a security deposit, whatever the lease heading says.

The second sentence then caps security deposits at one month’s rent “however denominated.” So the workaround (call it a non-refundable pet fee, an animal charge, a one-time cleaning deposit) does not create a second bucket sitting outside the cap. It creates another security deposit, and it counts towards the same ceiling.

At Watertown’s $942 median rent that ceiling is about $942 for everything the landlord holds. A full month’s deposit plus a $300 pet charge is $1,242, and the excess is not authorised by 43-32-6.1.

The one exception, and what it requires

The statute’s route above the cap has two conditions, both of which have to be met:

1. The larger deposit must be agreed upon between the lessor and the lessee.
2. There must be special conditions that pose a danger to maintenance of the premises.

That is not a landlord’s discretionary surcharge and it is not satisfied by the existence of an animal. It describes a circumstance, agreed to, that threatens the upkeep of the property. Whatever it covers, a household cat is not it.

Be clear about what 43-32-6.1 is not

It is a cap. It is not a fee bar, and South Dakota has no statute that bars a pet fee for an assistance animal in terms. That result comes from elsewhere.

Where the animal is a genuine accommodation, the charge falls away under SDCL 20-13-20(2), which makes it an unfair or discriminatory practice to discriminate because of disability “in the terms, conditions, or privileges” of a rental, and under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B), the federal Fair Housing Act’s reasonable-accommodation duty. That is an argument about discrimination, not a citation to a fee prohibition.

The two provisions do different jobs and both are worth knowing. 20-13-20(2) says the charge should not be made at all. 43-32-6.1 says that even where a charge is lawful (an ordinary pet, an ordinary tenant), it cannot be stacked outside the cap by renaming it.

Getting the money back

SDCL 43-32-24 was amended this year and is more specific than most states manage.

• Twenty-one days from termination of the tenancy and receipt of your mailing address or delivery instructions: the lessor must return the deposit or furnish “a written statement showing the specific reason for withholding” it.
• Forty-five days, on request: an itemised accounting.
• Withholding is limited to a closed list: amounts reasonably necessary to remedy defaults in rent and other funds due under an agreement, and to restore the premises to their condition at the commencement of the tenancy, ordinary wear and tear excepted.
• The sentence that matters most: a lessor who fails to comply “forfeits all rights to withhold any portion of the deposit.”
• Bad-faith retention adds punitive damages “not to exceed two hundred dollars”: a small number, and much less useful than the forfeiture rule above it.

Give the mailing address in writing when you hand back the keys. The twenty-one days do not start until the landlord has it.

What stays with the landlord

Damage an approved animal actually does is inside the restoration ground in 43-32-24, and conceding that early tends to make the rest of the conversation easier. An accommodation is permission to keep the animal despite a rule. It is not indemnity for what the animal does to the floor.

If Watertown says no

SDCL 20-13-31 gives 180 days from when the practice occurred, no discovery language, with the charge going to the Division of Human Rights inside the Department of Labor and Regulation. SDCL 20-13-35.1 then lets either side elect a civil action within twenty days of the notice to answer, at which point the Division loses jurisdiction and the case must be filed in court within a year of the election.

Reading a Watertown lease for the charge

Three line items to look for before signing, because all three count against the same ceiling.

A pet deposit, plainly a deposit, plainly inside the cap.

A non-refundable pet fee: money held against the animal’s performance under the agreement, which is what SDCL 43-32-6.1’s first sentence describes, whatever the lease calls it.

A cleaning or “administrative” charge tied to the animal — same analysis, and the phrase “however denominated” was put in the statute for exactly this.

Add them to the security deposit. If the total exceeds one month’s rent, the excess needs the statute’s narrow agreement-plus-danger exception, and an ordinary household animal is not it.

A last check before signing. Ask, in writing, what the total is that the landlord will hold. A single figure answers the whole question, and a landlord who supplies it has created the record you would otherwise be assembling from three line items after the fact.

Before any of that

Start with a clinician you already see. In a city of 23,000 serving a large agricultural catchment, that is easier said than done: Watertown’s clinical capacity is thin relative to its role, new-patient waits run to months, and some practices will not write housing documentation regardless of how long you have been a patient.

Where that route is unavailable, a licensed evaluation covers the same ground on purpose: a licensed clinician determines whether a disability exists and whether this animal answers it, and then either records that or explains why they cannot.

The cap in 43-32-6.1 protects a tenant who already has the accommodation. Nothing in it gets you the accommodation, and in South Dakota that part starts with a real assessment.