Tim Hubbard breaks down service animals versus emotional support animals for Airbnb hosts. Service animals have nationwide legal protection, but California and New York treat emotional support animals the same way. Hubbard learned this the hard way when Airbnb removed his listings after he denied an animal.
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There's a lot of confusion around the topic of what is a service animal? What is an emotional support animal when it comes to our short term rentals? This is a somewhat tricky subject and something that I learned a serious lesson from probably my biggest fail to this date in regards to my short term rental business. So that's what we're going to talk about this week. Thanks for joining me once again on the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss and investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Quick, actionable items to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard. So my biggest fail. If you've listened to the podcast for a while, you might remember that at one point I had a property in California where we questioned a animal, a pet that someone was bringing, or we denied them in some form, form or another. And Airbnb took down all of my listings, but they didn't really notify me that well. They sent an email that went into our email inbox that has hundreds of emails from Airbnb. Because we don't actually manage all of the messaging on Airbnb, we use a property management software. So my bad, missed the support email and they took down our listings, but they didn't take them down in a visible way. So they were still on Airbnb. Everything looked fine and on the front end, but on the back end our calendar was just blocked because we made a mistake with someone visiting with an animal and because we don't allow animals in all of our properties. Doesn't even matter. Doesn't matter if it's a service animal. So we're going to talk about that. So anyways, I learned that lesson. I don't want you guys to have to go through that as well. So we're going to talk about this week. What is a service animal? What's emotional support animal? What are the differences? Service animal basically is the more strict of the two. Very strict, I should say. In fact, if someone has a service animal which isn't actually considered an animal, it's someone, something doing a job for someone it's been trained to help service someone. Airbnb's definition, when you look up on Airbnb, they say it's most commonly a dog, which is, you know, most of the time, what we see. You know, a dog helping a blind person, maybe someone that's hearing impaired, maybe someone that has seizures. There's lots of really good reasons to have a service animal, but your service animal According to Airbnb, could also be a small horse. It could be basically whatever type of animal has been trained to help someone. So these are very, very helpful dogs, and it's great that people have that option. So we're not allowed to discriminate against a service animal in any way whatsoever on Airbnb or on VRBO or on most of the platforms. Again, you want to check with your local laws, but this goes for the US So in the whole US we can't discriminate against a service animal. We also cannot charge additional for a service animal. So we can't treat a service animal like an animal. Really. I guess it's someone. It's something that's actually helping our guests. So we can't charge. We can't discriminate. We're actually only allowed to ask two questions. Legally, we can only ask two questions. And the questions are, is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? Or what work or task has a dog been trained to perform? Those are the only questions we can ask. This is straight off Airbnb's policies at the time of this recording. And again, if someone has a service animal, they don't even have to tell you that they're coming with a service animal. So really, the only other way we're going to know is if we have camera setup. And I really. I encourage you to have cameras on the exterior of your property so you can see who's entering your property and how many people, how many guests, and in this situation, how many pets, or if they have pets. There is one exception to service animals, one exception where you could potentially deny a service animal. But again, this is risky territory, right? You don't want Airbnb taking down your listings or any beef, I guess, between the OTAs. The one scenario is if you have a permanent resident at the property, so maybe you're just renting out a room, and the person coming with a service animal could put the other person at risk, their safety at risk. So maybe the permanent resident human being has a severe allergy to animals. Well, then maybe that's a case for you to deny someone with a service animal. The only other situation is after a guest has already showed up to the property, if you have a way of knowing that that dog is out of their control and it's just kind of let loose. Well, you could also ask that Airbnb get involved, and you can have the. The guest removed or the. The reservation canceled in that situation, but those are the only ones. Other than that, you gotta be super, super careful that you're not breaking the law essentially by asking too many questions or charging or anything like that if it's related to a service animal. Now, if you have damage to your property, well, damage is damage, right? So just make sure you take pictures of the damage and support, send it into. You want to submit a resolution. If something got damaged, well, then you need to be compensated for it. You see this all the time. People are coming with emotional support animals. So you're allowed to ask questions around this topic. You're allowed to charge people if they have an emotional support animal, an extra pet fee. So if you missed last week's episode, go back and check it out. We talked about the opportunity that is there to rent our short term rentals and allow pets. There's a ton of opportunity and a lot of good reasons, reasons that I'm considering doing that and putting them in quite a few of my properties. So you can charge a little extra or however much your market will justify. So you can verify that it's a service animal. You could verify the needs of the guests, why they have a service animal. So it's a lot, it's a lot looser. And I should, I got to go back one step. You're allowed to ask these questions. You're allowed to charge in most situations unless you are in a state, California or New York. If you're in California, New York or your properties are in those two states, well, you pretty much have to treat emotional support animals like a service animal. Basically exactly the same. You can't ask questions. And that's where we got caught off guard because this property that we denied, the service animal was in California and the guests complained, filed discrimination. So if you're in those two states, sorry, it's a little more difficult for you to deal with pets if you don't want them there at your property. For everyone else, all of the 48 states, well, you can verify, you can ask more questions, you can charge. So hopefully that cleared that up a little bit for you. If it's a service animal, you got to follow the law. Can't ask questions, you can't charge. If it's emotional support animal, you can. And Airbnb has a handy additional pet fee. Now you're probably going to want to raise your cleaning fees a little bit if this is something you're planning on accepting all the time. And keep in mind, if you're in California or you're in New York, you cannot ask any questions about emotional support animal. So hopefully that cleared it up for you guys. Hopefully you're doing really well out there and until next week, talk to you soon. Take care. If you're looking for a ton of free resources, well, you can check out the links in the show notes or head to our website restmethods.com where you'll find free guides, house rules, and my ebook on finding the best short term rental properties. Thanks for tuning in.
