Since HUD withdrew nine fair housing guidance documents in September 2025, a lot of operators have concluded they are working without a map. They are not, and the reason is worth knowing precisely.

The 2004 HUD and DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act was not on the withdrawal list. Neither was the 2008 Joint Statement on Reasonable Modifications. What was withdrawn was the animal-specific guidance and several other documents. The general accommodation framework was not among them.

That matters because the 2004 Joint Statement addresses nearly every process question an operator has: how a request is made, what you can ask, what you cannot, how fast you have to respond, and what a lawful denial looks like.

The Seven Things To Get Right

If you are auditing a policy rather than handling a live request, this is the list. The rest of the post is where each one comes from.

1. Log every request, however it arrives. Oral counts. A request to a maintenance technician counts. Record the date received, because the clock starts there.

2. Train front-line staff to recognise a request without the words. "I need somewhere closer to the door because of my back" is a request. Nobody will say "reasonable accommodation."

3. Use a form, but never require it. Formal procedures are useful and cannot be a condition of consideration.

4. Audit the form for over-collection. If it asks for a diagnosis, medical records, or the nature and severity of a condition, it is asking for more than the Joint Statement indicates is necessary.

5. Set an internal response standard. The Joint Statement describes an obligation to respond promptly and says undue delay may be treated as a failure to accommodate. Your policy has to supply the number the law does not.

6. Build the alternative-accommodation conversation into the denial process, so that a refusal on reasonableness grounds triggers a discussion rather than only a letter.

7. And keep the documentation confidential and separate. It must not be shared beyond those who need it to make or assess the decision, or where disclosure is required by law.

For a portfolio running several property types and programmes, the hardest of those is the first. Requests arrive at the edges of the organisation and the obligation starts the moment they do. Here is where each of those comes from.

A Request Does Not Have To Look Like A Request

This is the single most common failure point, and the Joint Statement is unambiguous about it.

A resident makes a reasonable accommodation request whenever she makes clear to the provider that she is requesting an exception, change, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice or service because of her disability.

Four consequences follow.

1. No particular form. The Act does not require a request be made in any particular manner or at any particular time.

2. No magic words. The requester does not need to mention the Act or use the phrase "reasonable accommodation." What matters is whether a reasonable person would understand it as a request for a change because of a disability.

3. Not necessarily from the resident. The request can be made by a family member or someone else acting on their behalf.

4. And it can be oral. The Joint Statement notes that writing is usually helpful to both sides, and that residents may wish to check whether the provider has a preferred method. But it is explicit: providers must give appropriate consideration to requests even if made orally or without using the provider's forms or procedures.

Its own example is a tenant in a large apartment building who asks verbally for a mailbox she can reach, because a physical disability limits her ability to reach and bend. The provider would prefer the request on a pre-printed form. She never completes it. The provider must consider the request anyway.

Which means your intake process may have a gap. If accommodation requests only enter your system when someone completes a form, oral requests made to a leasing agent, a maintenance technician or a site manager may not be captured, even though the obligation may already have been triggered.

You Cannot Require Your Own Procedure

Formal procedures are permitted and useful. The Joint Statement says they may help residents make requests, help providers assess them, and provide records showing requests received proper consideration.

But the Act does not require them, and a provider may not refuse a request because the individual did not follow the provider's procedures.

There is a second constraint. If a provider does adopt formal procedures, it should ensure the procedures and any forms do not seek information that is not necessary to evaluate whether an accommodation may be needed.

So a form that asks for a diagnosis, medical records, or the nature and severity of a condition may be requesting more than is necessary separately from whatever happens to the request afterwards.

What You Can Ask, In Three Situations

This is where most policies are either too aggressive or too timid. The Joint Statement splits it three ways.

Where no accommodation has been requested. Under the Fair Housing Act it is usually unlawful to ask whether an applicant or anyone intending to reside there has a disability, or about the nature or severity of a disability. Four inquiries are permitted, provided they are made of all applicants: ability to meet the requirements of tenancy; whether the applicant is a current illegal abuser or addict of a controlled substance; whether the applicant qualifies for a dwelling legally available only to persons with a disability; and whether the applicant qualifies for housing available on a priority basis to persons with disabilities.

Where the disability is obvious or known, and the need is readily apparent. The provider may not request any additional information about the disability or the disability-related need.

The Joint Statement's example: an applicant with an obvious mobility impairment, who regularly uses a walker, asks to be assigned a parking space near the entrance instead of one further away. The difficulty walking is apparent. The reason she wants the closer space is apparent. The provider may not require her to provide anything at all.

Where the disability is known but the need is not apparent. The provider may request only the information necessary to evaluate the disability-related need.

Its example here: a rental applicant who uses a wheelchair tells the provider he wishes to keep an assistance dog despite a no-pets policy. The disability is readily apparent. Why he needs a dog is not. The provider may ask about the disability-related need for the dog — and nothing beyond that.

Where The Disability Is Not Obvious

Here the Joint Statement sets out what may be requested, and it is narrower than most verification forms assume.

A provider may request reliable disability-related information that does three things: verifies the person meets the Act's definition of disability, describes the needed accommodation, and shows the relationship between the disability and the need for the accommodation.

And it is specific about who can supply it. Verification that a person meets the definition can usually come from the individual themselves for example, proof that an individual under 65 years of age receives SSI or SSDI, or a credible statement by the individual. It may also come from a doctor or other medical professional, a peer support group, a non-medical service agency, or a reliable third party who is in a position to know about the individual's disability.

Then the sentence that should change most verification forms: in most cases, an individual's medical records or detailed information about the nature of a person's disability is not necessary for this inquiry.

That is a general statement, not an absolute bar. The Joint Statement's position is that the information requested should be limited to what is necessary, and in most cases that does not extend to medical records.

Once the definition is established, the provider's request for documentation should seek only what is necessary to evaluate whether the accommodation is needed because of a disability.

And the information is confidential. It must not be shared with other persons unless they need it to make or assess the decision, or unless disclosure is required by law.

The Deadline That Is Not A Number

Operators frequently ask how many days they have. The Joint Statement gives no figure, and the rule it gives instead is harder to manage.

A provider has an obligation to provide prompt responses to reasonable accommodation requests. An undue delay in responding may be deemed to be a failure to provide a reasonable accommodation.

Read that carefully. Delay is not simply a procedural lapse that precedes the real decision. An undue delay may itself be treated as a failure to accommodate.

Which has a direct operational consequence: without a fixed deadline, the practical protection is a record showing the request was received on a date, worked on, and responded to within a period that looks reasonable for what was being assessed. A request that sits unanswered for months is difficult to defend, regardless of what the eventual answer would have been.

Set your own internal clock, because the law does not supply one and the absence of one is not protective.

What A Lawful Denial Looks Like

A request may be denied in four situations, and two of them carry an additional obligation.

No disability, or no request by or on behalf of a person with a disability.

No disability-related need for the accommodation. The Joint Statement describes this as requiring an identifiable relationship, or nexus, between the requested accommodation and the individual's disability.

Undue financial and administrative burden, determined case by case, considering the cost, the provider's financial resources, the benefit to the requester, and the availability of alternatives.

Fundamental alteration, meaning a modification that alters the essential nature of the provider's operations.

Here is the part most denial letters miss. Where a provider refuses a request because it is not reasonable, the Joint Statement says the provider should discuss with the requester whether there is an alternative accommodation that would effectively address the disability-related need without fundamental alteration or undue burden. And if an alternative would effectively meet the need and is reasonable, the provider must grant it.

Its worked example is worth having. A tenant cannot open the communal dumpster because of a disability, and asks the provider to send maintenance staff to his apartment daily to collect his trash. The development is small, its resources limited, and maintenance are on site twice a week. Daily collection may well be an undue burden.

But the Joint Statement does not stop there. It says the provider should then discuss alternatives — for instance, placing an open trash can somewhere the tenant can reach, which staff empty when they are next on site. Little burden, no fundamental alteration, and the disability-related need is met.

So a denial that ends the conversation does not reflect the process the Joint Statement describes. A denial that offers and discusses an alternative does.

One limit on that, in the requester's favour. The Joint Statement notes that persons with disabilities typically have the most accurate knowledge about the functional limitations posed by their disability, and that an individual is not obliged to accept an alternative the provider suggests if she believes it will not meet her needs and her preferred accommodation is reasonable.

And if no agreement is reached, the Joint Statement is blunt: a failure to reach agreement is in effect a decision not to grant the request.

The Fee Rule, Stated Directly

Because this is the question of the moment, it is worth quoting the position.

Housing providers may not require persons with disabilities to pay extra fees or deposits as a condition of receiving a reasonable accommodation.

The Joint Statement's second example on that point is an applicant with a hearing impairment who needs an assistance animal. The provider may not require a fee or security deposit as a condition of allowing the animal.

There is a distinction worth holding onto. If the animal causes damage to the unit or common areas, the provider may charge the tenant for the cost of repairing that damage, or deduct it from the standard security deposit imposed on all tenants, if it is the provider's practice to assess tenants for damage they cause.

Charging for damage caused is not the same as charging a fee for the accommodation. The first is permitted where it is your general practice. The second is not.

Direct Threat Is An Assessment, Not A Category

The Act does not protect an individual whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals, or would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others, unless the threat can be eliminated or significantly reduced by reasonable accommodation.

But the Joint Statement is explicit that the Act does not allow exclusion based on fear, speculation or stereotype about a particular disability or about persons with disabilities generally.

A direct threat determination must rely on an individualised assessment based on reliable objective evidence, such as current conduct or a recent history of overt acts, and must consider three things: the nature, duration and severity of the risk of injury; the probability that injury will actually occur; and whether any reasonable accommodation would eliminate the direct threat.

The assessment must also take into account whether the individual has received intervening treatment or medication that has eliminated the threat.

One Thing To Know About Section 504

If the property receives federal financial assistance, Section 504 also applies, and its obligations are greater.

The Joint Statement says so directly, noting that Section 504 imposes greater obligations than the Fair Housing Act for example, providing and paying for reasonable accommodations that involve structural modifications to units or public and common areas while the principles in the Statement about accommodations to rules, policies, practices and services generally apply under Section 504 as well.

So the request and evaluation process described above generally travels. The cost answer does not.

FAQ

1. Was the reasonable accommodation guidance withdrawn?
No. The 2004 HUD and DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations was not among the nine documents withdrawn in September 2025. The animal-specific guidance, FHEO 2020-01 and FHEO 2013-01, was.

2. Does a request have to be in writing?
No. A request can be made orally or in writing, need not use the words "reasonable accommodation," and may be made by someone acting on the person's behalf. Providers must consider requests even if they do not use the provider's forms.

3. Can I refuse a request because the resident did not use my form?
No. A provider may not refuse a request because the individual did not follow the provider's formal procedures.

4. What documentation can I ask for?
Where the disability and the need are both obvious, none. Where the disability is known but the need is not apparent, only information necessary to evaluate the disability-related need. Where the disability is not obvious, reliable information verifying the disability, describing the accommodation and showing the relationship between them. In most cases medical records are not necessary.

5. Who can provide verification?
The individual themselves in some cases, or a doctor, other medical professional, peer support group, non-medical service agency, or a reliable third party in a position to know about the disability.

Sources: Joint Statement of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice, Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act, 17 May 2004, for the request, inquiry, documentation, timing, denial and fee provisions and the examples described above; 24 CFR 100.204. The 2004 Joint Statement was not among the guidance documents withdrawn by HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity effective 17 September 2025; confirm its current status before relying on it. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act imposes additional obligations on recipients of federal financial assistance. State and local fair housing law may impose further requirements. This article describes general concepts and is not legal advice. Confirm your position with counsel before responding to a specific request.