# ESA Letter in Sammamish, WA: Covenants, Boards & Rented Houses

> Sammamish rents at 17.4%, the lowest in Washington. Why a subdivision covenant does not settle an assistance animal question, and who is actually bound.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/washington-emotional-support-animal/sammamish/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-02
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 66,474
- Households renting: 17.4%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Varies by building
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Varies by building
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The least-rented city on the list

Sammamish rents at 17.4%: roughly 3,900 of 22,144 occupied units on the
2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate. That is less than half
the statewide 36.2%, and the lowest share of any of Washington's twenty
largest cities by a considerable margin.

The contrast with its immediate neighbour is striking. Redmond, a few miles
west, rents at 56.8% and is the most-rented large city in the state. Two
cities on the same plateau sit at opposite ends of the range.

Almost everything let in Sammamish is a detached house inside a planned
community with recorded covenants. So the animal question arrives here in a
particular form: not a leasing policy, but a rule adopted by neighbours and
enforced by a board.

## A covenant is a rule, not an exception

The first assumption to dispose of is that a recorded covenant occupies
different ground from a lease clause because it was registered against the
title.

For the purposes of Washington's disability discrimination chapter it does
not. WAC 162-38-100(3) provides that a landlord may not refuse to rent to a
person with a disability because that person uses an assistance animal, and
that a no-pet policy cannot be applied to such an animal. The regulation
addresses the policy's effect, not the document it happens to live in.

What brings a board inside that rule is the definition. WAC 162-38-040 treats
as a landlord anyone other than the occupant who controls the use of property
under a claim of right arising from an ownership interest: including persons
controlling common areas, and anyone acting in an owner's interest.

An owner who says the community will not permit it has therefore not
identified something outside the regulation. They have identified a second
party inside it.

## The charge that arrives from the board

Associations apply their own animal charges, and an owner letting a house
usually passes them through as a term of the tenancy.

WAC 162-38-100(5) does not allow an animal-specific deposit alongside the
cleaning or damage deposit a disabled tenant already pays. Where the money
originates with a board and reaches the tenant through the owner, it is the
same demand arriving from a different direction.

Subsection (4) leaves the ordinary deposit standing, provided the owner
charges it to every tenant rather than only where an animal is present.

## The meeting nobody should have to attend

The distinctive Sammamish difficulty is procedural rather than substantive.
Boards decide collectively, in meetings, and a request for an accommodation
gets scheduled as an agenda item, which means a tenant is invited to explain
a health condition to their neighbours.

Where the disability and the need for the animal are not readily apparent, a
request for supporting information is legitimate. What is not legitimate is
what follows it. WAC 162-38-110 draws the line at private matters the tenancy
does not genuinely require, and the regulation's own illustration is
deliberately mundane: asking how many people will occupy a
home is reasonable, while the details of how somebody is assisted, and when,
ordinarily are not the enquirer's business.

A written request, answered in writing by whoever administers the community,
is both sufficient and appropriate. A hearing is neither.

## The indemnity attached to the approval

Where boards do approve, the approval frequently arrives with a form
requiring the resident to accept liability or hold the association harmless.

WAC 162-38-120 makes exactly that an unfair practice. Rights may not be
bargained away, and indemnities may not be extracted, in exchange for getting
or keeping the tenancy, where the reason for asking is that a disabled
resident or one with an assistance animal will be living there.

The distinction is narrow but real. Being answerable for damage the animal
actually causes is an ordinary obligation and survives. Signing away rights
because the animal exists does not become enforceable by being printed on a
form.

## When the request is for a child

Family housing produces requests made by one household member for another,
and boards frequently respond that the applicant does not appear to be
disabled.

WAC 162-38-060 disposes of that. An unfair practice on the basis of disability
includes discrimination because of a disability of the renter, of a person
residing in or intending to reside in the dwelling, or of any person
associated with that renter. A parent requesting an accommodation for a child
who lives in the home is within the regulation.

## Training, registries, and neither being relevant

Boards researching the question tend to arrive at the state's service animal
definition, which requires individual training and excludes comfort and
companionship from the meaning of work or tasks.

RCW 49.60.040(25) closes by removing that subsection from RCW 49.60.222
through 49.60.227 with respect to housing accommodations and real estate
transactions. The whole of the state's fair housing law. It governs shops and
workplaces. It does not govern a home.

Nor is there any credential to produce. Washington operates no register of
assistance animals and no agency issues certificates or identification for
them, so a document bought online addresses none of the questions the
regulation asks.

## Removal, and the common areas

WAC 162-38-105 permits a demand that the animal go only where two things hold
together: unreasonable danger to people or property arising from the animal's
conduct, and an earlier sensible attempt at correcting that conduct which did
not work.

Two of its supporting rules matter especially in a covenanted community.
Annoyance on the part of other residents is expressly not a qualifying risk.
And an animal may not be removed from an entire property because it presents a
risk in part of it, which is directly relevant where a complaint concerns a
shared trail, a park or a clubhouse rather than the house itself.

## The deposit rules apply here too

Covenanted communities generate so much argument about rules that the ordinary
tenancy protections get overlooked, and they are worth stating.

An owner letting a Sammamish house cannot take a deposit at all without a
written agreement and a signed, dated record of the property's condition and
cleanliness at handover (RCW 59.18.260). Where that was not done, the deposit
is owed straight back.

At the far end, RCW 59.18.280 allows thirty days from the tenancy finishing
and the house being emptied for a written, itemised account of anything
withheld, supported by the estimates or invoices behind each damage charge.
Ordinary wear is not chargeable. Let the thirty days lapse and the right to
retain any of it is gone.

None of that is affected by what the community's covenants say.

## Complaining about a board

A complaint about a board goes to the same place as a complaint about a
landlord. The Washington State Human Rights Commission takes housing
discrimination complaints statewide, and RCW 49.60.230(2)(a) allows a year
from the date the practice occurred or terminated, against six months for
other discrimination complaints. Filing is through the commission's online
portal, with a toll-free line on 1-800-233-3247.

King County additionally runs a Civil Rights Program covering housing among
the areas it enforces, at civilrights@kingcounty.gov or 206-263-2446.

Ask for the decision, and the rule relied on, in writing from both the owner
and the community. In a city where the rules were adopted by neighbours, the
document naming who refused and why is what turns a dispute into a claim.

For the statutes behind these rules, see the
[Washington ESA law guide](/blog/washington-emotional-support-animal/), and our
[guide to getting an ESA letter](/blog/articles/how-to-get-esa-letter/) for what
belongs in the supporting documentation.

## What Sammamish landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot apply the trained-task definition of a service animal to a housing request, because RCW 49.60.040(25) states that the subsection does not apply to RCW 49.60.222 through 49.60.227 for housing accommodations or real estate transactions
- Cannot refuse to make reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where that accommodation may be necessary to afford a person with a sensory, mental or physical disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling
- Cannot apply a no-pet policy to the assistance animal of a person with a disability, under WAC 162-38-100(3)
- Cannot charge a pet deposit on top of any standard cleaning or damage deposit, which WAC 162-38-100(5) makes an unfair practice outright
- Cannot demand that the animal be removed unless its presence, behaviour or actions pose an unreasonable risk of injury or harm and a reasonable attempt to correct that behaviour has already failed, under WAC 162-38-105
- Cannot treat staff or neighbour annoyance at the animal as the kind of risk that justifies removal, and cannot exclude it from the whole property over a risk confined to part of it
- Cannot inquire into matters personal to a disabled applicant beyond what is necessary and appropriate to the landlord-tenant relationship, under WAC 162-38-110
- Cannot require a waiver of rights or a hold-harmless as a condition of the transaction because a disabled person or a person with an assistance animal will occupy the property, under WAC 162-38-120
- Cannot collect any deposit at all without a written agreement and a signed move-in checklist, or keep any of it without a documented statement within thirty days

**Can:**
- May charge its standard cleaning or damage deposit, provided the same deposit is enforced equally on every tenant, which WAC 162-38-100(4) expressly permits
- May ask for information supporting the disability and the disability-related need for the animal where neither is readily apparent
- May hold the tenant responsible for damage the animal actually causes, substantiated at move-out by invoices or estimates like any other charge
- May fall outside the accommodation duty entirely in two narrow cases under RCW 49.60.222(2): an unadvertised single-family house let by an owner holding no more than three, and an owner-occupied dwelling of no more than four units, though the section's other prohibitions still apply

## How to get an ESA letter in Sammamish

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

- [King County Civil Rights Program](https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/executive/governance-leadership/equity-social-justice/office-of-equity-racial-social-justice/civil-rights-program) (county agency)
- [Washington State Human Rights Commission](https://www.hum.wa.gov/fair-housing) (state agency)
- [Fair Housing Center of Washington](https://www.fhcwashington.org/) (fair housing)
- [Northwest Justice Project](https://nwjustice.org/get-legal-help) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### The subdivision covenants ban the breed. Does that settle it?

No. A recorded covenant is a rule like any other, and WAC 162-38-100(3) provides that a no-pet policy cannot be applied to the assistance animal of a person with a disability. Because WAC 162-38-040 defines a landlord for this chapter to include persons controlling the common areas and anyone acting in an owner's interest, the body enforcing those covenants is inside the same regulation as the owner who let the house.

### The board wants to vote on my request at a meeting. Do I have to attend?

Attending and explaining a medical condition to neighbours is not something the regulation requires. Where the disability and the disability-related need are not readily apparent, a request for supporting information is legitimate, but WAC 162-38-110 draws a line at private matters that running the tenancy does not genuinely require, and putting somebody's health before a room of neighbours sits a long way past it.

### Can I be asked to indemnify the association?

Not as the price of approval. Under WAC 162-38-120 nobody may be made to give up rights, or to indemnify, in exchange for getting or keeping the tenancy where the reason is that a disabled occupant, or one with an assistance animal, will be living there. Accepting liability for damage the animal genuinely causes remains an ordinary term and is unaffected.

### The request is for my child rather than for me. Is that a problem?

It is not. WAC 162-38-060 protects against discrimination based on a disability belonging to the renter, to somebody living in the dwelling or about to, or to anyone associated with the renter at all. A parent making the request on behalf of a child living in the home is within the regulation, and nothing requires the disabled person to be the signatory on the lease.

### Does my animal need to be trained to be protected here?

No. RCW 49.60.040(25) contains a trained dog-or-miniature-horse test and excludes comfort and companionship from what counts as work or tasks, but the subsection removes itself from RCW 49.60.222 through 49.60.227 wherever housing accommodations or real estate transactions are involved. The whole of Washington's fair housing law. Nor does any Washington agency register or certify these animals.

### Who takes a complaint about a homeowners association?

The Washington State Human Rights Commission, in the same way as a complaint about a landlord. RCW 49.60.230(2)(a) allows a year from when the practice occurred or terminated for a housing or real estate matter, against six months for other discrimination complaints. King County also operates a Civil Rights Program enforcing county anti-discrimination law in areas including housing, at 206-263-2446.

### Why is Sammamish's renter share so low?

Sammamish rents at 17.4%, roughly 3,900 of 22,144 occupied housing units, on the 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, less than half the statewide 36.2% and the lowest of Washington's twenty largest cities. It is an overwhelmingly owner-occupied, detached-housing city, which is exactly why animal disputes here arrive through covenants rather than leases.

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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=washington-emotional-support-animal%2Fsammamish