🐾 We Picked a Pet Screening Partner. Here's the Question That Decided It.

Back in June I told you we run every applicant through a pet vetting platform, and that assistance animal verification is the part that used to keep me up at night. I also told you to build your accommodation workflow with your attorney, because that's the step that saves you.

Here's what I didn't say: even with a platform, the decision was still ours. The file got reviewed, a recommendation came back, and the approval or denial went out under our name. If it got challenged, that was our problem.

So when we went looking for a pet partner to put in front of PMAdvisor members, I asked every vendor one question: who actually makes the decision?

OurPetPolicy was the only one with an answer I liked.

🤔 Do you actually need it?

1. Your leasing team is the one deciding whether an ESA letter holds up.
2. Nobody on your team can tell you when the last rabies certificate in your portfolio expired.
3. Your office fields every resident call about a denied accommodation.
4. You manage in a state like Wisconsin, where HUD's May enforcement memo changed very little because state law still protects ESAs.

If any of those are true, keep reading.

🎯 Why OurPetPolicy specifically

These are the questions I'd ask any screening vendor, including whoever you use now.

1. Who makes the call? OurPetPolicy takes responsibility for approving or denying assistance animal requests. They make the determination, keep the paper trail, and handle the resident conversation, so your leasing team isn't improvising. Their agreement also includes indemnification if a fair housing complaint follows. More on that below.
2. What's your conversion rate? Not approval rate. Of every assistance animal request reviewed, how many ended up as paying pets on your fee schedule? By OurPetPolicy's own 2025 numbers, more than half. If your current vendor can't give you that number, that's your answer.
3. Who chases the vaccine records? A profile gets built at move-in, the rabies record lapses eight months later, and nobody notices until something happens. They automate collection of expired vaccination records with reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days, and only loop your team in when a resident goes quiet.
4. Who talks to the resident? They do, by phone, email and text. Your office stops being the help desk for a denied request. Residents get their own FAQ and support line.
5. What happens if you leave? Month to month, 30 days notice, plans set community by community, and your animal records stay accessible after you cancel.

Assistance animal decisions come back in two business days.

⚖️ One honest note

Not everyone thinks a vendor should make this call. PetScreening, which makes a recommendation and leaves the approval or denial to you, has published an argument that no vendor can legally take on your fair housing obligations, and that indemnification clauses won't shield you. Read it. They're a competitor, but the core point is fair: you're the housing provider, and some obligations stay with you no matter who you hire.

Where I land: indemnity isn't immunity. Have your attorney read that clause before you lean on it. What I'm paying for isn't a legal force field. It's a vendor that makes a consistent, documented decision and handles the resident, instead of handing my leasing team a recommendation and walking away.

🛠️ Do this regardless of which vendor you use

Keep a second door open. Disability rights advocates point out that accommodation requests can't be conditioned on completing a specific form or using a specific platform. Run everything through your vendor by default, but make sure your addendum and your team both say a resident can submit a request another way, and that it gets reviewed either way.

💰 Why through PMAdvisor instead of signing up direct

1. The member rate isn't published and isn't available by calling them cold. It applies while you're a PMAdvisor member.
2. We take no referral fee. The full discount goes to you, same as CredHub.
3. We run it ourselves. We're moving our own portfolio onto it now, with existing residents transitioning at renewal so nobody pays for two services in the same lease year.

🚀 How you start

1. Reach out to your VA team lead or Greg.
2. We connect you with Marven at OurPetPolicy. He runs the demo, answers the liability and software questions, and shows you the member rate.
3. Setup is your community list, your animal rules, and your existing fee schedule. Team training runs about fifteen minutes.
4. New applicants route to OurPetPolicy automatically. Current residents move over at renewal.

🤝 This is what we do

We take the vendor meetings, ask the uncomfortable questions, and bring you the ones worth your time. No kickbacks. You get a better rate than you'd get on your own. If you're new here, here's what PMAdvisor is and why we built it.

🔎 Tell me who we should vet next. Reply with the names.

Your success is the whole point of us. 🙌

📚 Worth a read

🐾 My Puppy Punctured My Car at Seven Months Old. That’s Exactly Why We Vet Every Pet.

It’s Monday evening and I’m on my couch trying to relax. Trying, because a 125-pound Tibetan Mastiff has decided my arm is a chew toy and it’s playtime, and a Chow Chow is glued to my other side like velcro, supervising. And somewhere between dodging puppy

PM Monthly ForecastRegine Collins

HUD Issues Fair Housing Enforcement Memo on Animal Requests | National Apartment Association

The Big Picture On May 22, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued Enforcement Guidance – Assessing Requests for the Use of an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act. This guidance notifies HUD headquarters and regional staff that effective immediately, for fair housing complaints related to animal-related reasonable accommodations, HUD will find reasonable cause and recommend charges only for cases involving animals that are trained to provide disability-related assistance, i.e. service animals. This announcement previews significant changes in HUD policy on service animals and emotional support animal (ESA) requests that will become legally binding for the public and businesses in future rulemaking. In the enforcement memo, HUD states that it intends to harmonize its regulations, to the maximum extent possible, with those of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Deeper Dive Key changes include: HUD will use the training component of the ADA definition for service animals to assess animal-related reasonable accommodation complaints under the federal Fair Housing Act; HUD will find reasonable cause for failure to provide a reasonable accommodation involving the waiver of a pet policy only where the animal has been individually trained to perform work or perform tasks directly related to the complainant’s disability; and HUD no longer expects housing providers to categorically extend accommodations for trained service animals to untrained ESAs. The enforcement memo instructs Regional Directors in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to send all open emotional support animal cases to HUD’s Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement and Programs for a case-by-case determination on the merits. Overall, this announcement has an immediate impact only on assistance animal accommodation requests that are the subject of complaints filed directly with HUD or HUD-initiated, and possibly those that are “dual-filed” with HUD and a certified state or local agency. Although it may provide another defense for denying or limiting an accommodation for an assistance animal, the memo does not have binding authority over state or local law enforcement, whether administratively or in a lawsuit brought by a private plaintiff. NAA’s Perspective While the National Apartment Association (NAA) supports disabled renters’ rights to reside with their assistance animals, fraudulent reasonable accommodation requests for assistance animals - specifically ESAs – create significant concern for apartment owners and operators. The volume of fraudulent requests continues to inflate housing providers’ compliance costs and their administrative requirements to process requests timely in accordance with fair housing laws. NAA is grateful to HUD for taking swift action and looks forward to continuing conversations with HUD and the Administration on our shared housing goals. NAA will continue to serve as an educational resource for its members. NAA’s Emotional Support Animal Toolkit helps to inform industry professionals of their fair housing responsibilities to evaluate reasonable accommodations for animals in housing and navigate fraudulent requests. As this situation continues to evolve, NAA will update its member resources accordingly. Deeper Dive To learn more about NAA’s fair housing-related advocacy, see our Emotional Support Animals policy page or contact publicpolicy@naahq.org. For more timely updates on the industry’s advocacy and legal news, register for our monthly Advocacy and Legal Webinar (ALW) series and tune in every third Wednesday of the month at 2 pm ET. This webinar is exclusively for NAA members and affiliate partners.

National Apartment Associationstaheriannaahq.org