Emotional Support Animals Rules

Foreign. Welcome, everybody, to today's podcast, the Main Street Business podcast with yours truly, Mark Kohler and the infamous Matt Sorenson. For those that are watching on YouTube, you already see another face here. We're excited. We have a special guest and we got an awesome topic today. This is gonna be good. Matt, you're a dog owner now? No. You have a cat.

I'm a cat owner, yeah. Yeah. We're talking about pets today. Some legal issues, some tax issues. So those pet owners out there, maybe some land landlords that deal with pet owners, business owners, or people with medical conditions that want to write off your pet. We're going all pets today. And as a proud cat owner, I've been a dog owner too. You know, I'm, I like both pets. I'll, I'll be inserting my minimal amount of knowledge. Mark was geeked out on this topic. You know what's funny? I have a Pet Law Basics article I wrote in June of 2015 that I opened up, just, you know, get myself ready for today.

Yeah, well, boy, go back to the archives, will you? Well, before I introduce our special guest, I want to welcome anybody that's a new listener. We normally start with a little tax or legal tip. We're going to finish with a tax or legal tip today. We only have a little bit of time. If there's one person that's going to charge more per hour than us, it's a doctor. So we don't want to waste his time. So our goal is to go through. And frankly, I kind of got geeked out on this topic is I'd written an article on how to write off pets. And then I was hanging out with my good friend Clay Prince, and he was, that's Dr. Clay Prince to you. He said, this ESA issue is really a big deal. And I go, you mean educational savings accounts? He goes, no, I'm talking about emotional support animals. And he just lit it up. And I was like, oh, my gosh. So anyway, we're going to talk about some of the medical issues, the legal issues of tenant landlord. When it comes to these emotional support animals. We're going to probably bring in the airlines and travel and public spaces, the different categories. And then I'll tell you the good news, though, a little spoiler alert. The tax write offs are the one nice spot in all of this. The tax write offs are great for these types of animals we're going to talk about. So without any further ado, Clay Prince, a doctor, primary care physician in the trenches, dealing with this every day. He's got a practice, very successful practice with. We took him away from giving COVID vaccinations today, I'm sure. No, but he's just a good friend and I've spent some mornings in the duck blind with him shooting birds. And he's so smart, so bright. So, Clay, thank you for being here with us. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm honored to be here. I'm a big fan of Matt Sorenson.

See, that's how you start that. That's how you come on a podcast properly.

Podcaster.

Well, okay. Well, well, Clay, so let tell us about what you're seeing for ESAs. What's kind of been the issue? Why are people going to their doctor?

Yeah, you were giving us a little background, I liked of how this kind of came across your plate, too.

Yeah, I think a good place to start is that, you know, in addition to being a physician, I'm also a landlord and a property owner, rental property owner. And I recently purchased a new unit with a little townhome. And what started this conversation with Mark is that, you know, I had it advertised. I'm managing this one myself. And. And I had it advertised on Facebook, Marketplace, and I started getting messages that you get, you know, like, hey, is this still available? And one of these messages was something along the lines of, hey, we have about nine people that all want to live there and, you know, from four different families, and we have three emotional support dogs and two cats and, you know, a zebra and a giraffe. And is that going to be a problem?

And

I didn't know quite how to respond to that. I'm not a legal expert on emotional support animals, but I do know a little bit when. And so that's what sort of stimulated interest in talking about this with.

Well, it's because I guess on the front lines, I love that you're both. Matt and I are both landlords. And so this is very, very interesting from that perspective. But I'm also a dog owner and our dog has been a very important emotional support animal. Truly, dogs are great, you know, but did you learn about this in medical school too? Like, from a doctor perspective? Bring it together. How did this get.

Yeah, so I've been practicing medicine for almost 20 years now. And no, no, this wasn't a thing. When I was going through my. My training in medical school or in residency, I think a few years ago, I'm going to guess five or six years ago, we started getting patients coming in and asking for what they would call an ESA letter. And we didn't know what that was. You know, I'm a doctor, not a lawyer, you know, and to kind of learn. And a lot of us in primary care started out just sort of becoming familiar with the fact that, that the FHA requires landlords to make a reasonable accommodation for an emotional support animal for certain patients and that they had to have this letter if they wanted to get the animal. And so a lot of us, I think, started out by just being like, I don't know, it's kind of a thing just to make it easier on ourselves, like, okay, whatever. If you want a letter that says you have depression, a letter that says you have anxiety or whatever it is, then sure, as long I would tell them what I tell a lot of my patients that want letters for various things, which is, I'll write you a letter that says anything you want as long as it's true. And so I think a lot of us started that way and that's what I did. But we've really evolved, most of us now, to where we're very reluctant to do that because we've sort of learned that it's more than just saying that a patient has some kind of diagnosis. So, you know, I'm going to talk a little bit about my understanding of the legal requirement for an animal.

Let me, let me take a step back just to put it in context for everyone, too. So, I mean, in many ways, like, you're like punching their ticket whether they can have a pet in their apartment, maybe to take it on a plane to go to a grocery store. I mean, they need the doctor to basically give them this seal of approval to say this pet is necessary for you. And if you're on the other end, right, business owner, landlord, you know, you've got to, you have to accommodate that legally.

Yeah, right. As a landlord, you sort of have, you know, I think you have certain units that are pet friendly, that you're happy to have people's pets there and everything. And sometimes you charge extra or an extra deposit or anything. And then you have some units that, like this one that I have most recently bought, it's a newer unit, it has brand new carpet and, and it's kind of one that I want to keep nice. And I don't want some NLP on the floor. You know, I'd rather have it be a non pet, the unit if I can. And the ESA requirement under the fha, as I understand it, kind of erases that. If a patient want, or a patient, if A tenant wants to really push that. And so this is where the rub lies, though, for physicians and other healthcare professionals is that my understanding is that the law says that a patient can have this reasonable accommodation made if they have a disability. And the problem is, in healthcare, we're used to that word disability having very specific meaning. You know, you have to go through a process to be declared disabled, for example, for Social Security, to receive Social Security income, and etc. In fact, most physicians aren't familiar enough with that process that they're even willing to do those disability certifications for patients. So it's a kind of a specialty within healthcare for a physician to even do that. But under the FHA's version of the law, they don't really specify what that means. And in fact, I read a little bit on it just in preparation for the show, and it just basically says that a person has to have either a mental or a physical problem that significantly disrupts their life.

Yeah.

And disability under the fha.

Yeah. And, Clay, this is so energy. I'm going to put a link in our notes to a podcast by Rent Prep. We've had Rent Prep, a national company that helps screen for tenants and follow tenant law, and they have a great podcast. And Andrew Schultz recently held a podcast, had a lawyer that specialized in, what do you do in that application process? Because are you allowed to put that application on the bottom where they said, I have an ESA animal. Could you get in trouble for that? So we're not going to go down that path today. It is a rabbit hole. But I want to say I'm going to put that link to that podcast on some of these legal issues of when you're screening tenants, what to do. So everybody check that out. But, Clay, tell me what you think of this. When I was researching and also talked to Steve White, the owner of Rent Prep, they were talking about the Federal Fair Housing act and the Americans with Disability act, and they had classified the dogs or animals into three categories. Service dogs, which you'd have for a blind individual or someone with serious disabilities. Physical therapy dogs, which are more of a training type animal, someone that's dealing with PTSD or something. And then there's broad category called the esa, or emotional support animal, which could include more than a dog. And I was just like you. I couldn't figure out, okay, service dogs are really easy. Okay? They're blind, they need help getting across the street. Okay, I get it. But with an esa, where, what have you found to be the definition of someone needing emotional support?

An animal, yeah, you're absolutely right. When it comes to service animals, it's very cut and dried. And in fact, we don't see those patients in our offices in primary care looking for a letter because it's not required to have a letter. If you are a person who has, who qualifies to have a service animal, then you don't have to have a doctor's note for that dog. But that's. And so we don't really have much to do with that because that's a really, a more cut and dried scenario. But ESA thing gets kind of wild and if, and in fact it has become over the. I was going to say finishing the story. So I'm not nearly as willing to write an ESA certification letter as I used to be because as I've, as it sort of evolved and as I've been able to see what this is all about, I've realized that when I write an ESA letter, I'm essentially calling this patient disabled. And I'm a little reluctant to do that. First of all, if they haven't been declared disabled in some sort of official manner, and I explain that to patients, I say, look, in order for me to make an ESA letter that's going to be valid, I'm going to have to say you have a disability. Are you comfortable with that? Because most of don't, you know, most of them have a little anxiety. Maybe they've had that in the past. I was looking on it and this has become a cottage industry where you can go online and do an online version of health care, you know, a little interview, and they'll take your history and ask you a bunch of questions and then go ahead and write you a letter just based on that and charge you a fee. Kind of like, kind of like. And I feel, I probably feel a lot about that. The same way that you guys feel about, you know, legal zoom. It's like, I don't know. Yeah, but, but anyway, We very quickly figured out that a lot of patients were not necessarily looking for, to use the ESA exception as a legitimate thing. They just wanted to have their pet and they wanted to get around the, the rules of wherever they were renting. And we could pretty quickly figure that out. And so we didn't want to participate in that. I was open me up to legal liability concerns if that pet did some damage or hurt somebody. And I had said that that patient could have it and didn't have all my bases and they really weren't disabled. And then it, you know, it caused Some sort of expense that could, could lead to a lawsuit because of course, as a doctor,

everyone just wants to see the doctor. Right.

So. Well, so it's a tough situation. But I've all but quit writing them and patients have quit asking for them because it's become so simple to just go online and get one.

So I think, you know, in Mark's resource, he point out for landlords, I think is important because, you know, as a landlord myself, I've had people, tenants that are like, was the prior tenant, did they have pets because they have allergy issues or other issues that they don't want to be in a place where there used to be pets or, you know, and so on the flip side of it, you end up having a problem once that tenant moves out that may have had an animal, if you've generally had a no pets policy. And so I've, you know, I run into it on the back end too. So I think it's a tricky issue. Mark isn't like one in three Americans have a dog, our households. And so, you know, but you're one in three of your prospective tenants are going to have a pet at least. And like, I know in a lot of metropolitan areas like New York and stuff, there's more pets than children, you know, and a lot of cities now. And so it's more likely some prospective tenants going to come with a pet, a dog being the most common, than they are to be coming with a child to rent.

Yeah.

Which is crazy.

That's crazy. Yeah. And Clay, you were going to add something to that.

Yeah. I just said I'm a dog owner too. I'm not an animal hater or anything, but I kind of see both sides of this. As a physician where it's been very plain to me that patients aren't coming in because they actually have a need for an emotional support animal. They're coming because they want a pet. They want some kind of exception. I think they have a right to that because of this law. And I'm just not so sure that that's right. I'm not a lawyer, but it just doesn't feel right to be giving people a letter when maybe they have a little garden variety depression or. I mean, at this website I was looking at this morning that advertises these letters, gives testimonials from patients, and they're things like this, hey, I went to college. I was feeling a little homesick, so I went on this site and got this ESA letter. And now I can have my pet in my Dorm. And my R.A. can't say anything. And it's like, that may be a thing, but I. That's not something that, as a physician, I want to put my name on and that I want to be affiliated with, helping people get around, you know, renting rules. That just doesn't feel right to me personally. And. And even though I'm, you know, I'm. I'm an animal lover, I have dogs in my house. And. And I'm not against it in concept or anything, but I also believe that when you're running a rental property business, you know, you should have certain rights on to specify how that property is going to be used and to require extra cost for people who are likely to cause extra wear and tear, you know?

So, yeah, I am. I. This is so helpful, Clay. Thanks so much. Sorry, Doctor, for bringing this up. I'm thinking of the movie Spies like, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor.

You're just going for some points. First, a movie line. That's all.

Come on. That was legit. That was legit. A little Dan Aykroyd right there. Okay.

Credit for. I'm a. I'm a doctor, not an attorney. That's.

Hey, a juror's doctorate. What is it?

What is doctor, not an attorney. Is that. I don't know that one.

What is.

What is that a line from a movie?

Well, it's a. It's a line from Star Trek that the doctor. The famous one is, I'm a doctor, not an engineer, but go on YouTube that. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor, not a dot. And he actually says a lot of stuff. My favorite one is, I'm a doctor, not a peeping Tom.

Jim, I'm a doctor, not. Yeah, Dr. McCoy. I love Dr. McCoy. Okay, so I think what this boils down to is this definition of a disability, and we have to be sensitive to that. I know someone's listening that is saying, hey, I've been able to cope in life because of my pet, and it is really an important part of my life. And we're not saying you shouldn't be entitled to that letter, and you shouldn't be entitled to take your pet wherever you need to. We want you to have that. It's just regrettable that there are people that are going to, you know, scam the system to have a pet wherever they want to go. I'm not gonna lie. I bought one of those cool little vests that says support animal, and I put it on my little Winnie dog, which some of you have seen. Her name's Winnie, she's a little mini schnauzer. And I. I put her on and I said, I'm gonna walk around the grocery store today with Winnie. And so I just put on her little vest. And now after this podcast, I feel really guilty. I must be.

Yeah.

I shouldn't have. But I.

Guys, but that's. That's a. No, no. This is attorney client privilege conversation, so don't worry. No one knows that you bought that. That's online on the.

On the dark web that actually, like. And not to. Not to burst your bubble or anything, Mark, but I. I do think it's important for people to understand that when a dog actually has a uniform, you know, it's really best if that is not just a dog that's an emotional support animal or just your pet, because people identify those uniforms as that being an actual service animal, which, of course, as you've. As you've said, is different. And so.

Yeah.

Do people do that? Yes, they go out. And is that against the law? I don't think so in most places. I actually have heard that in some places, impersonating a service dog is a crime. But. But I think out of respect for those people that are blind, that have seizures and that have these service dogs which can really go with them wherever they go, as opposed to an emotional support animal which has different rights attached to it. You can't take an emotional support animal to a restaurant. You can't take an emotional support animal to the grocery store. Really, your rights with an emotional service or an emotional support animal only extend to where you live and then through a different law, as I understand it, to being able to take it when you travel, like on an airline. And they've had some issues with that.

I know. Matt, you were going to say something. Yeah. Let me report this. This was just this year. February 1st, it went into effect. Delta, American, United, and Delta banned ESA dogs from all of their flights. Southwest Airlines is the only airline that's continuing to allow it up, as far as I can know up to this point.

But Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta, Delta. They. They did not allow it.

No, no, Roger, Roger, that can quit calling you Shirley.

So you said Delta twice. And by the way, that is a Legally Blonde movie quote right there. Just. You didn't know that? Delta, Delta, Delta.

For you guys, I thought that was.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, legally Bond's a legal movie, so that's. That. That's. You can. That's, you know, it's a legal movie. So. Yeah.

And for the movie rule Is that if it's illegal, then it's okay. Okay, sorry.

Yeah, those are, those are like three pointers. You get three points for legal movies. Just a regular basket.

Yeah, but I think this, this, this is really evolving nationwide. And one of the things that spurred this on with the airlines was some dog attacks in two or three different situations where the dogs certainly were not trained well enough to be emotionally support. Maybe they were more protection, you know,

but also someone, an emotional support animal doesn't have to be trained to do anything. That's, that's one of the requirements. One of those things that's very specifically said in the law, as I've read it again, I'm, I wouldn't. I'm barely a medical expert. I'm certainly not a legal expert. It's interesting to me because it very specifically says that you as a landlord cannot ask, what is this dog trained to do if they're only asking for an emotional support animal because it's just its presence alone is what the treatment is.

Yeah.

And interestingly enough, you know, as far as I'm aware, there's not medical literature for an emotional support animal that proves that it does any good for anybody. You know, there's. It hasn't been evaluated like, you know, randomized, double blind controlled trials that say people, that people that have an emotional support animal do better in some clinical outcome. I think it's all based on kind of a common sense and purely a legal housing and urban development thing that somebody thought should be a reasonable accommodation. You know, I don't think it's based on legitimate medical outcomes. Now that's not the same for service animals. And even they have a specific type of service animal called a psychiatric service animal that's trained to recognize the symptoms of a psychiatric decompensation in certain patients with, say, bipolar disorder or something. And those dogs are really more like a service animal. There's a specific category of service dog that's trained to do something because when they recognize those symptoms, they'll do something to help the patient be more aware that they are decompensating psychiatrically, psychologically. And so, you know, to me, that's a whole different thing. And emotional support animals, where it just gets murky for me because, yeah, they had incidents. I don't blame the airlines. Like landlords have expressed concern about an emotional support animal that then causes some kind of harm to a neighbor in the same complex that they also have to protect that person's quiet enjoyment and so forth and not let that person feel like they're in danger of getting bitten every time they see that dog. But if you're sitting in the seat next to that person that's got their German shepherd on the airplane with you and you've got to be there for three hours and they're allowed to have that growling dog sitting there next to you, I start to wonder what are the rights of everybody else and not necessarily the person with the esa? So then I think that's what the airlines have expressed is like, look, it's all well and good to follow the law with ESAs, but we're not going to put our other passengers at risk and get sued for that and suffer the PR consequences and et cetera. So, yeah, it's a murky area for sure. And it's one of the reasons I decided to talk about this. Can I get some free legal advice while we're here? Since I met.

That's like, that's like the whole purpose of the podcast. Free legal advice.

I just want to see.

I'm so cheap.

I want to see United. I want to see United dragging a dog down the aisle on the way out of the plane and just, yeah, can't be on the plane.

They can combine, they can combine this with the, all the, all the jokes they made about Mitt Romney when he was running for president and they could strap it to the roof of the seven.

Oh, yeah,

there you go.

Well, yeah, yeah. So great.

Let's say hypothetically that you are a landlord and, and you have a tenant who brings to you a request for reasonable accommodation. They want an emotional service or emotional support animal. But you are familiar enough with the situation to know that this is not an emotional support animal situation. In your heart of hearts, you know, this is a pet in disguise. And they're just wanting to get around your no pets policy. What, what, if anything, can you do as a landlord to challenge their request for a reasonable accommodation?

Well, I'll take my first shot at this, Matt. If I could, I would say it's the person, it's up to them to bring the lawsuit. If you just deny it and say, no, I'm not going to rent to you, I don't care what letter you have. I have proof or fact. You want to make sure you're, you can back it up, but you can say, no, I'm not going to rent you. If they don't sue you, you're done. I mean, they'll just go away and they may not. And a lot of times these people don't have a pot to Pee in anyway. And so your, your legal recourse is to deny them, but you've got to be prepared if they go find an ACLU attorney trying to make a name for themselves and they come back and sue you and say, I'm going to take you to court. So you've now got to pay legal fees to go to court and say. And defend yourself. That would be your only recourse, is to be able to back it up.

I think, yeah, I think, yeah, I, I mean, you gotta. My thought, I. My approach to it. I'm like struggling with this because I kind of don't like Mark's answer there as much of like make them sue you. They don't have a pot to piss in. I don't love that answer. And that's not how I would operate actually as a landlord either is. I think what I would do as a landlord is I would take a step back. What is my real concern? I have a tenant that I otherwise think is good. They've got good income, they've got good credit. I've done all the other stuff to screen them. And if you can say that what is my hang up with them having a pet, what information? Maybe I'd want to know information about this pet. Are they a problem pet? Is it a large animal? Is it not? How old is it? How long has it been with this person? And if I otherwise like that, I would be like, okay, I'm going to allow a pet. And if you look at just the demographics right now of tenants out there, we just talked about a lot of people have pets. You're going to take one third of the prospective rental market off the table because they have a pet and Mark has a pet, Clay has a pet, I have a pet. Right. Like if we were out in the rental market, wouldn't we want to rent somewhere? So I think as a landlord, you got to. I want people to first take a step back, say what is my real concern? Understand who the pet is and is it going to cause wear and tear. Maybe you have a reasonable pet deposit or an increased rent for the pet because of that. And if you feel like you still need to deny it, I would be careful. Because the thing with the disability laws is there's also legal fees included in that. So if you lose and if the person has a letter, they're going to have a strong case. So if you deny them on the basis of just that, if they otherwise a really quality tenant and you deny on the base of that. So I think it's tricky. I think it's unfortunate that for, for many landlords that have concerns with pets. I get it. Particularly like the multi tenant place, you know, an apartment building or something, there's other tenants where there, there may be concerns of protecting the other tenants, but I don't know that that's the analysis. I think it's tricky and hard and there's so many competing factors on it, but that's how I'd. That's how I'm thinking of it at least.

So what answer did you like better? Clay. So, Clay, which answer did you like better?

Yeah,

I don't like.

Can I get another attorney's opinion on this?

I like Fun, A friend. Yeah, no, I, I like both your answers.

They're.

They're both, they're both, they're kind of opposite extremes. In my, in my opinion, what I can picture myself doing is something closer to what Matt said and just saying I don't like getting taken advantage of. And especially if I have a. I think especially if you're taking advantage of. Because if I did allow pets in that unit, but I required extra rent and I required an extra deposit, if the patient has an ESA letter, they don't have to pay. Pay that. They don't have to pay any of it. And I'd kind of taken advantage of if they just gone online and gotten some letter and then I'm supposed to just accept it at face value. And I think I could see myself at least challenging it and saying, look, I'm not going to challenge the law on ESAs, but I am going to challenge this idea that you're disabled. Well, that's your defense.

In my case, that's your defense. Because if they sue you, you're gonna go bull crap. I know that this letter is a bunch of crap. And if, and here's the problem.

Here's, here's why you're gonna lose. That's why it's a loser case. As the landlord, in my opinion, is because what is the doctor's position gonna be when you go challenge that doctor? They're gonna be like, well, I'm the doctor that signed the damn letter. Of course I thought that they're not gonna be like, yeah, you're right. I just sign these. I don't give a crap. I just kind of sign them off and I don't, you know, I take, I collect my fee and I, you know, I go to the next person and I sign their letter and I collect a fee. The doctor is going to defend their position. And so you're going to have to go to. You're going to have to go to an expert to examine that person to then say, that doctor was wrong. I just think it's. I just think it's a tough case. I. If some client came to me and said, yeah, I denied someone, a tenant who had a letter from a real doctor, and I denied them, and I want you to represent me, I'd be like, you got a tough case. Yeah, I mean, I feel like.

I feel like somebody needs to challenge this and create case law, but I don't want that to be me. Yeah, I don't want to hire.

So I'm going to hire Clay Prince as my expert. He'll come in and tell him, you're just fine. Quit being a crybaby.

What I would challenge, I think, if I was. If I was taking it to the Supreme Court, is I'd say, look, the FHA needs to define what disabled means. Because, I mean, look at me. I've gotten thin enough on top. So I think. I think under their definition, I could be like, okay, my diagnosis is male pattern baldness, and it creates a significant disability for me in my life because, I mean, I'm a happily married guy, but let's just say I wasn't. And I can't get dates. You know, that's a big part of my life. I'm.

I'm.

My head looks like some kind of fledgling bird, and I can't get babes. But if I just have this. If I just have this pet, this. If I get a cute dog, then the girls are distracted by that and alleviates my disability. And so now I meet the definition under the FHA law. Boom, I'm disabled. And it's really ambiguous.

Well, we got to keep moving on to our next topic of tax. But, Clay, this is. This has been great. You're so fun to chat with, and. And definitely it's. It's an issue. And I. Like I said, I've got a full other podcast link down there with Andrew Schultz on some of the legalities as you screen tenants. And it's much more in depth with an eviction attorney that can give you more feedback. Please do not rely on my opinion of what to do or Matt's. We do not. We're here to save you taxes and structure legally for a potential lawsuit. And I think being, in all honesty, Matt's approach of being cautious in making rash decisions with tenants and getting an advice from an attorney that could help you, guide you through it was so important. But Clay, thank you for being here. Well, I'm going to call you later because I need that letter so I can get my handicap permit for my car because I want to drive and park closer to the buildings I go to. Can I get one of those cards? Is that.

Yeah, I mean, just by looking at you, I can tell you'll meet those qualifications, so. Oh, man. Well, you guys are great. I just want to. Just give me 30 seconds here. I want to tell your audience I really appreciate you guys. I've just been. I've known Mark for, geez years and you know, we had gone back on playful banter. In fact, we had this deal where Mark said, hey, you know, I've reached that age. I need a colonoscopy. You know, colon cancer screen. I happened to do those. So. And he said, why don't you do that? And then. And then he offered to give me a coloroscopy, which is. So we did this. And yes, I can vouch for the fact that Mark's just as pretty on the inside and he had tons of good suggestions for me. I was at a good time in my life to make some changes to try to improve my corporate structure, to do better tax planning and also just to do some asset diversification. And so this whole year I've basically been a Kkos lawyers and Kohler and Air. I sort of loiter around. I feel like I'm doing so many changes, but I just appreciate all of the. You know, I've listened to a lot of their podcasts and just enjoyed their content and the fact that they're so pro small business owner people like me. And so I just wanted to say thanks, you guys, for all you do. And I'm a. I'm a big fan of what you're putting out there.

Oh, Clay, thanks so much. That's really nice. Ya.

That's why we do it now.

What's that?

That's why we do what we do.

Good. And I. And I also appreciate chance to be on your show.

Well, thanks. No, we. We gotta have you back. He'll be our regular Dr. Oz. So whenever we have issues, we'll just bring in Clay Prince. Dr. Prince of Bel Air. Dr.

Prince, Bel Air.

And. And also Clay did send me pictures of my colonoscopy. We put those down in the show notes as well. So any of you wanted to see my insides? Those are there, right?

And we also pack some. We also posted my prior tax returns as a don't do it this way kind of thing.

Yeah, they were ugly. Yeah. You think my colon's ugly?

Results posted in the show notes.

Yeah, I don't know what's uglier, my colon or his tax return. But, you know, problems. We're good. Thank you, Clay. All right, well, let's move on to the tax topic. I think this is good. And Clay, you're welcome to stay and listen to this part, but the tax topic is really so much less complex. It's publication 502 of the IRS that goes through what medical expenses are deductible under a flexible spending account, a health savings account, or a health reimbursement arrangement, or simply as a itemized deduction under schedule A, which is the importance of has been reduced dramatically with the increase in the standard deduction. So if anybody wants to know what a medical expense is that's validly deductible, you go to IRS Publication 502. Well, this whole topic that we've been beating up here on the show is summarized in one little paragraph from the IRS that says, hey, if they've been determined to be disabled and they need an animal, and they have not gone into much detail on the difference between a service animal, a therapy animal, or emotional support animal, they say if they're disabled and some of their other determinations that that could include mental or physical disability, it's a write off. And I think maybe the IRS just doesn't want to get into the muckety muck of what is disabled or not either. So they've just said if, if they've been determined to be disabled, you need an animal, the cost for that animal are a deduction. So

their food, their stuff that the animal has, maybe toys or whatever, the animal cost themselves, their vet bill. That's all. Now a medical expense reimbursement of your HSA or your HRA or your fsa. All right?

And it's very powerful. And I think now, and I also included in the show notes an article where I went through seven ways to write off an animal. And the first one is the medical. That's the simplest, frankly. There's using your animal as a guard dog. You can use a cat for pest control. In fact, Disneyland in California has documented they have 13 feral cats on property just for pest control. And any costs related to those cats are deduction. That's what they're using. If you've been through the Indiana Jones Temple of Doom ride, you get down in there, you'll see a cat running around once in a while. I've never seen one with a rat in its mouth. But the cat, cats, pest control. But there's other ways to write off an animal, but under the medical purposes, it's really quite straightforward. Let your health savings account, debit card pay for it.

I had a client, I had the client that had the bike shop that was, you know, they had a dog that was always there and the dog would many times stay overnight, you know, and they didn't live there, you know, so that the dog would stay overnight. And it was basically a security reason why they would do that. And they wanted to be able to take as a business expense, the dog cost for the dog, you know, vet cost, food and all that. Because the dog was part of the security of, for the, for the bike shop. I was like, I think that's a reasonable basis. Like if the dog's just coming with you to be your bud while you're working. Nah. You know, but if there's dogs staying over there nights to, to help as part of security measures, make it less enticing for someone to try to break in or scare someone away, that could be an expense.

Yeah. And let's throw out another one. Now, since we still have Clay with us, we've. There's a gentleman we know named Glenn Cropper who's a. Runs a hunting preserve and hunting club, and his dogs that he trains will go out with hunters and he'll take him with him and sometimes he'll sell a dog or he'll train a dog. So those dogs are a product of his business and those costs for those dogs are a complete write off. And I think. Clay, you got your dog over there at Glen's, didn't you?

No, I took my dog over there and had him help train him to retrieve. So he does sell really highly pedigreed hunting dogs and he's got a great operation.

Yeah, I took one of my dogs there. Yeah, her name was Annie. We took her, took her over there and. No, sorry, Hazel. Hazel was this dog. It's. We had a lab named Hazel. And I'd left the dog there for three months to get trained to hunt birds and scare birds up and go pick them up if you shoot them. And after three months, Glenn called me up and said, please come get your dumb dog. Your dog is an idiot. Not gonna happen. I can't even get him to fetch a stick, so. And after three months putting money down the toilet and it's because my kids love this dog. And he, of course, Hazel had a terrible pedigree. And she would just lick you and look at you, which she probably would qualify as an emotional support animal, but couldn't pick up a duck for the life of me, so it was terrible.

I'm wondering, so. So she was basically labeled incorrigible. And it makes me wonder about your childhood. Did you ever get that label? Yeah, I. Let's just say so that's interesting to hear all those deductions about an animal from the, from the owner's side if they have, you know, a disability that causes them to require it. I'm curious if there are any special deductions that are allowed on the landlord side or any special tax credits or anything that you're aware of that could make it more worthwhile to want to provide these accommodations for marginal cases.

Well, there's definitely like improvement credits for people, for landlords in terms of improving their property to comply with the ada. So if there was Americans with Disability Act. So if there was, you know, that would be the first place I would look. I don't know that offhand, but certainly there's improvements that provide tax credits for that. I don't know though if it's an esa because I don't know if that. Does that qualify under the ADA that we're.

My understanding is they use the ADA definition of disabled, but it's not really an ADA law. It's a, it's a Federal Housing Authority, or fha, whatever that stands for. The law is under their jurisdiction. I'm not sure it falls under the ada.

Yeah, well, this just as the resident CPA on the show at the moment, if we're talking about improving the property, it's called the Disabled Access credit, where you maybe put a ramp up to your house and it's in compliance or allowed for under the ada, Americans with Disability Act. So you're trying to help make your property more accessible or it says any eligible expense, that's to include reasonable accommodations. Now, of course, as a landlord, if you have to replace the carpet due to a dog or the dog causes any damage, you're going to get a write off for that. But I wonder if you maybe you add a dog door to the rental property. Yeah, that's a credit.

Or a gate or a fence or something that keeps the pet away from other areas or something like that. Something. Those things I think could be possible under that tax credit, which of course a credit way better than just a deduction or write off.

I mean, would you have to claim that under. Under a disability, you know, law, or is that just fall under improvements in general? Because can't you write off Improvements in general. Anyway, when you have rental properties or.

Well this is.

Yeah, you're.

Great question, great question. So you get to write off the cost to do the improvement. Then you get a tax credit of up to $5,000. Up to $5,000. So it's up to 50% of your first $10,250 spent. So you spend this money, you get a write off and then the government says, hey, we'll subsidize it up to 50% on the first 10 grand as a tax credit. It's not refundable, but it's a great tax credit. Form 8826.

I'm impressed. Wow.

Yeah, that's Google. So we know that's what you do when you're seeing patients. You just go to WebMD and you're like oh, what the hell did I just see? What is that? You know, you know, Google.

No, I'm curious. That makes me more curious now too. So let's say that I want to. Let's say that I have a property, it's a new property and I'm like, hey, this would be a great property for somebody with an esa. And, and so I'm going to. But, but it needs some changes like like you mentioned a gate or I don't know, a special place for the doggie to go to the bathroom. What, you know, whatever it needs to be done. Could you do those improvements and claim that tax credit? Even if you have never had a tenant that asked for a reasonable accommodation, could you do a sort know ahead of time or do you have to wait until somebody requests that before you can claim the tax credit?

Boy, I. My. Now this is me. I try to be aggressive and I like this. See what you're doing is claiming this credit because you improved your property to make it more ADA compliant or reasonable compensation for someone. So I'm going to build this. Now, if I put in the ramp. Yeah, reasonable accommodation. So if I put in a wheelchair ramp, which is the most obvious, let's say, and I put my house up for rent, but no one comes along that needs the ramp, do I still get the credit? Yes, because I put in the ramp to make it ADA accessible. Now the next tenant down the road, second or third one, might use it. So if I make it more ESA compatible or accommodations for the ESA type tenant with a pet. But then I don't have an ESA tenant. That doesn't matter. I made it. I improved the property to make it acceptable for an ADA tenant. So Matt, would you concur Yeah, I like that.

I like that. I mean, I'm not the resident cpa, so. I concur. I concur.

That's why I'm a fan of you, because Mark's always claiming to be a cpa and.

Yeah, I'm claiming. All right.

Well, man, we went from, you know, esa, animals, disability, what do you do as a landlord, to riding off your pet if you've got one. We tried to cover it all, and I want to thank everyone for being on. Thank you for Dr. Clay. You know, when you're gonna be a celebrity doctor, you gotta be like doctor, you know, like Dr. Phil, Dr. Clay, Dr. Oz. You know, you got to be just a one thing. It's like Dr. Something. So I'm you here. Just from here out, be Dr. Clay.

All right. Are you okay with that?

I think the first thing is I'm gonna have to work on this a little bit.

Hey, Dr. Phil can do it, you know, don't worry.

Some hair, as. As previously mentioned, some. Something with the hair. I don't know.

Yeah, we'll work on that.

Or just, you know, just be a podcast guest. No one knows. So it's a podcast. Don't. Don't you worry. But. All right, well, thanks, everyone, for listening. There's going to be some links that Mark mentioned you can get in the show notes on some more issues you can dig into on landlord and tenant liability as to this issue. And thanks again, Dr. Clay, Prince. Mark, anything else you want to add in here?

No, I love it. I appreciate all of you that are listeners, and if you know someone with a pet that looks emotionally disabled, send them this link. They might be able to use it. So let them game the system and. But don't go to Dr. Clay for your ESA letter. He'll run you through the gauntlet, so be careful. Thanks, Clay. We'll see y' all next week.