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Query: Our rental bylaws permit house owners to have both one canine or one cat of their items. An proprietor can’t have two canines or two cats or one canine and one cat. They’ve to decide on. One proprietor in our constructing has one canine and two cats, which exceeds the utmost of 1 pet as outlined in our bylaws. The proprietor has supplied the board with a letter from their physician saying that their three pets are wanted for emotional help. Is that this true? What can we do? Assist!
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Reply: The obligation to accommodate comes up within the context of human rights legal guidelines and condominium companies are topic to human rights laws. In Alberta, the regulation is named the Alberta Human Rights Act.
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If a case for discrimination has been established, the discriminating get together bears the duty to take all cheap steps to accommodate, as much as the purpose the place it will incur undue hardship. In different phrases, if the proprietor can present discrimination, the condominium company should take all cheap steps to accommodate the proprietor, as much as the purpose the place it will incur undue hardship.
Usually, for a condominium company to have interaction in any obligation to accommodate, there have to be some potential for discrimination. Usually, circumstances involving animals reminiscent of service canines or remedy pets come up within the scenario of bodily or psychological disabilities. As a result of “bodily” and “psychological” disabilities are outlined authorized phrases below the AHRA, I must evaluation the letter of the proprietor’s physician to find out if the proprietor matches into a kind of classes.
To determine discrimination, the proprietor should present that they’ve a incapacity or another protected attribute. Even when we settle for that the physician’s letter establishes that the proprietor has a incapacity throughout the which means of the AHRA, the proprietor should nonetheless present discrimination. With out that, the extra pets can be in violation of the condominium company’s bylaws.
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Useful Trace: Human rights points should not simple to deal with. Lodging on human rights grounds is a really particular course of that activates a person’s explicit circumstances. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy. In contrast to a service canine, there aren’t any authorized {qualifications} for remedy/emotional help animals in Alberta.
Listening to the proprietor’s wants and dealing with them to create an lodging plan is all the time the perfect follow in a lot of these disputes. There may be all the time threat with claims of human rights violations and within the explicit case of emotional help animals. Tread fastidiously and get authorized recommendation instantly.
Roberto Noce, Ok.C. is a associate with Miller Thomson LLP in each the Edmonton and Calgary workplaces. He welcomes your questions at [email protected]. Solutions should not supposed as authorized opinions; readers are cautioned to not act on the knowledge supplied with out in search of authorized recommendation on their distinctive circumstances. Observe Noce on Twitter at @RobertNoce.