What to Do if Your Accommodation or Modification Request is Denied

While requesting a reasonable accommodation or modification to your housing is relatively simple, what comes next after you have made your request?

It’s important to remember that your landlord or housing provider must consider your request. They can’t just say no because it’s inconvenient, and they can’t charge you an extra fee for an accommodation. Your housing provider should never flatly deny an accommodation or modification request. This may trigger a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

Reasonable accommodation and modification requests are an interactive process. If your housing provider does not find your request reasonable for one reason or another, they should state that and seek to offer an alternative that would work for both parties.

Generally, a landlord can deny an accommodation or modification for three general reasons: If it imposes an undue financial burden, if it imposes an undue administrative burden, or if it requires a fundamental deviation from the nature of the program.

It is important to remember that these are reasonable accommodation and modification requests. Just as your request for an accommodation must be reasonable, so too must any counteroffer by your housing provider.

Just because a housing provider offers you an alternative does not mean that you have to accept it if your initial request was reasonable and their alternative would be unreasonable for one reason or another. You should clearly and politely respond in writing why you think your request is necessary and reasonable and why you find any counteroffer from a housing provider unreasonable.

If there is a dispute over what would be reasonable and neither party can come to an agreement that works for both parties, then you may need to take the dispute to an administrative agency or court to have a third party determine what is considered reasonable. A housing provider also should not fail to respond to or unreasonably delay responding to your request, as this may be a violation of the Fair Housing Act.

While failing to respond to your accommodation request is a potential Fair Housing Act violation, at the same time your housing provider is entitled to a reasonable amount of time to review and respond to the request. If you would like a response by a certain time, you may include it in your request if the timeline is reasonable.

While there is no exact timeline that would be considered reasonable, many factors would impact what would be considered a reasonable time to respond, including the nature and complexity of the accommodation requested, the length of the delay in responding, the timeline of events, any deadlines that were missed, and whether the delay appears to be willful or made in bad faith with an attempt to obstruct.

It is important to remember that a housing provider cannot charge you an additional fee for an accommodation or modification. As an example, a landlord cannot charge their tenants a standard pet fee for an assistance animal because an assistance animal is not a pet.

However, a tenant in private housing would generally be responsible for the costs of a modification to their apartment. This would not apply to tenants in government-subsidized housing.

A provider’s failure to respond to an accommodation, unreasonably deny it, or place unreasonable conditions on the accommodation, including fees, constitutes discrimination on the basis of a person’s disability in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

People with disabilities who experience this can seek justice by filing complaints with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights, or filing complaints in federal or state court.

If you believe you were denied an accommodation or modification request in error, contact the Fair Housing Project at New Hampshire Legal Assistance for potential assistance.

Acknowledgement and disclaimer: The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the federal government.