Service Animals

An assistance animal is not a pet, and we don’t charge you like it is one.

Fair housing law recognizes two kinds. A service animal is a dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for a person with a disability. A support animal — this includes emotional support animals — does work, performs a task, or provides therapeutic support related to a person’s disability, trained or not.

If we approve an assistance animal for your home, none of the following apply to it:

• Pet rent
• Pet deposit or any increased security deposit for the animal
• Pet profile fee
• Pet inspection fee
• Breed, weight, or size restrictions
• Any charge for making or processing the request

What does still apply: you’re responsible for damage the animal actually causes, handled through your security deposit like any other damage, and the animal follows the same rules everyone follows — leashed in common areas, waste picked up, no excessive noise, no aggression toward people or other animals.

 

How to ask

Just ask. There’s no magic wording and no required form. You can ask before you apply, during your application, or three years into your lease. Writing is easiest for both of us, but it isn’t required.

- Email your property manager, or Operations@RentEclipse.com
- Send a message through your tenant portal
- Use our PetScreening assistance-animal request, which is free

PetScreening is offered as a convenience. It is not a requirement. If you’d rather hand your property manager a letter from your provider, we’ll take it and review it ourselves.

We aim to give you an answer within 10 days of having what we need. If it’s taking longer than that, call us — 719.581.RENT.

 

What we can ask, and what we can’t

If your animal is obviously a trained service dog, we won’t ask you anything.

If it isn’t obvious, we may ask two questions: is the animal required because of a disability, and what work or task has it been trained to perform.

For a support animal, if your disability isn’t observable and we don’t already know about it, we may ask for reliable documentation of the disability and of your disability-related need for the animal — usually a letter from a health care or mental health professional who actually knows you.

We will not ask for your diagnosis, your medical records, how severe your condition is, a form of our own choosing, notarization, a particular kind of provider, or an examination by someone we pick. We don’t require the animal to be certified, registered, licensed, or to wear a vest — an online certificate or registry listing isn’t documentation and we won’t ask you to buy one.

 

While we’re reviewing

No pet charges apply to an animal while a request about it is with us.

 

Animals that aren’t usually kept in a home

Dogs, cats, small birds, rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, other rodents, fish, turtles and similar small domesticated animals are ordinary household animals. If you’re asking about something outside that list, we can ask you to explain the disability-related need for that specific animal or type. It’s a higher bar, not a closed door.

 

When we can say no

Rarely — and never because of the animal’s breed, size, or weight. We can deny a request if no disability or disability-related need is established after you’ve had a fair chance to document it, if the accommodation would be an undue financial or administrative burden or would fundamentally change how we operate, or if that particular animal is a direct threat based on what it has actually done. If we turn down what you asked for, we’ll tell you why and talk with you about what would work instead.