When exceptions are the rule: now is the time to remind apartment professionals of the basics when it comes to granting requests for reasonable accommodation.

Property managers deal with some of the hardest-hitting legal questions of the day. Of these, the question of how to respond to a resident with a disability who requests a reasonable accommodation a request to be given preference or even excused from the community's rules or practices--surely ranks among the toughest to answer.

The vast majority of property managers understand the "classic" example of an accommodation: a blind resident is legally entitled to keep his or her guide dog even if there is a no-pets rule at the community. However, in addition to complying with reasonable modification requests, there are countless accommodation scenarios, many of which are difficult and fact-intensive, and the risk of breaking the law is real. Complaints to fair housing organizations based on denials of requests for accommodation increased by almost 22 percent last year. When an employee improperly refuses a resident's accommodation request, that fair housing violation puts not only that individual at risk for liability, but also his or her company and everyone in the chain of command.

1. Fido is Permitted

A seeing-eye dog is only one of many types of service animals that are excused from an apartment community's no-pets rule.

For example, a resident with severe depression who needs Fido, an emotional support dog, is entitled to an exception from a no-pets rule as long as he or she can verify with a doctor's note that the animal is necessary to ameliorate symptoms of the resident's disability. A Michigan housing provider paid hundreds of thousands of dollars after a trial on whether this type of accommodation was required. Remember that the no-pets rule is still valid and applicable to other residents; it just isn't applied to the disabled resident in question.

2. Late Rent Sometimes Isn't Late

Rent is due on the first, period. But many residents who receive government benefits because of a disability do not receive their benefits checks until later in the month. Those residents may request that the apartment owner extend the due date so that they can cash the benefit check and then pay rent.

This is an accommodation apartment owners must grant, and the resident need only show proof of receipt of the disability-based government benefits. Note that this requirement does nothing to change the resident's obligation to pay his or her rent in full.

3. Changing Units May be Mandatory

Residents with disabilities may request a change in units. More often than not the request is for one on the ground floor.

For example, a resident with severe degenerative arthritis resides in an upper floor home and requests to move to a ground-floor home to avoid the daily obstacle of the community's stairs. This request must be granted. Another example is a resident with severe asthma who requests to be moved to another home because his breathing is strained by a neighbor's constant drifting tobacco smoke. This is a tougher case, but if the resident provides a doctor's note verifying the breathing problem caused by the drifting smoke, then this is most likely a required accommodation.

4. Everyone Wins With Extra Time

After months of complaints, an owner finally delivers to his resident. Noisy Neighbor, a 30-day notice to vacate. Noisy doesn't object to moving, but her son uses a wheelchair and, because it is difficult to find another apartment home that is suitable and accessible for her son, she requests an extra 30 days to move out (for a total of 60 days). The owner probably is required to grant this request, which is not too great a burden because at least there is certainty that the community will be free of Noisy's nuisance behavior, if only 30 days later than preferred.

Remember that this accommodation applies only to Noisy, and the existing practices in terms of 30- or 60- or 90-day notices are unchanged.

5. Be Aware of Parking Preferences

Everyone wants the perfect parking space, right? Many apartment communities have rules and practices when it comes to assigning parking spaces, usually based on a "first-come, first-served"basis. Nonetheless, residents with mobility impairments are usually entitled to preference in parking, even though others are not. Preference means priority, such as a mobility-impaired resident being first on the waiting list for a parking space closer to his or her unit, or a resident in a wheelchair gaining exclusive use to an accessible space even though the community's policy is not to assign a parking space to an individual resident.

This is an especially important tip because, even if some owners are aware of these requirements, many others are not. According to a study released in May 2004 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 20 percent of housing providers in Chicago refused to grant a designated accessible parking space accommodation. The price of failing to grant these accommodations is steep: a housing provider in San Francisco who failed to permit the assignment of an accessible space to a renter with a disability settled after trial for $1 million.

Spread the Word

It is impossible to cover the many ways in which an accommodation request may present itself. What is important is that a housing provider can reject the accommodation request only if the accommodation will not alleviate the conditions of the resident's disability, or, by granting the request, the housing provider will suffer an undue financial or administrative burden. Only an undue burden is prohibited; most courts have found that the housing provider is required to bear some cost.

Given that these types of complaints are rising, it is especially important that apartment owners educate colleagues on these issues. By doing so, they will protect themselves, their colleagues and their companies from disability discrimination complaints.

Liam Garland is the Director of Litigation of the Housing Rights Center, a fair housing organization based in Los Angeles. He can be reached at 800/477-5977 or [e-mail].