{"id":25052,"date":"2019-02-20T17:43:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T23:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25052"},"modified":"2019-02-20T17:43:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T23:43:45","slug":"documentation-could-be-required-for-assistance-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=25052","title":{"rendered":"Documentation could be required for assistance animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landlords could require written documentation of a tenant\u2019s disability before allowing an assistance animal on their property under a bill considered Feb. 20 by the Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Robert Clements<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LB553, introduced by Elmwood Sen. Robert Clements, would permit landlords to require written verification from a licensed Nebraska health service provider of a tenant\u2019s disability and the need for an assistance animal.<\/p>\n

Clements said some tenants have sought online verification letters for their pets to avoid paying pet deposits and similar pet fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [bill] seeks to address the problem of people going on the internet to pay for a verification letter stating that they need an emotional support animal when they don\u2019t suffer from a disability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gene Eckel, representing the Nebraska Association of Commercial Property Owners, supported the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly support the rights of disabled persons to seek reasonable accommodations but abuse is a problem for landlords,\u201d Eckel said. \u201cWithout the clarity in this law, landlords are subject to costly legal challenges … to dispute lawsuits from [bad] actors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposing the bill was Brad Meurrens, public policy director for Disability Rights Nebraska. A landlord could not identify an unseen disability in order to demand verification without invasive, possibly illegal questioning, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t approve or endorse people trying to \u2018game\u2019 the system,\u201d Meurrens said. \u201cHowever, the goals [of LB553] can largely be achieved through education and enforcement of existing federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landlords could require written documentation of a tenant\u2019s disability before allowing an assistance animal on their property under a bill considered Feb. 20 by the Judiciary Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25049,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[240],"class_list":["post-25052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-sen-robert-clements"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/LB553Clements2-20-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25052"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25053,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25052\/revisions\/25053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}