Disability Accommodations and Modifications: Your Rights as a Renter

Under the federal Fair Housing Act, a landlord must make reasonable exceptions to its rules for a tenant with a disability, called reasonable accommodations, and must let you make reasonable physical changes to your unit or the building, called reasonable modifications. In private rentals, the landlord bears the cost of an accommodation and you pay for a modification; in housing that receives federal financial assistance, the provider generally pays for physical changes too. A landlord can ask for proof only when your disability or your need for the change is not obvious, and can refuse only on narrow grounds, such as an undue financial and administrative burden or a fundamental change to how it operates.

Accommodation or modification: which one you need

A reasonable accommodation is a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service. HUD and Justice Department examples include:

• Assigning you an accessible parking space near your entrance when parking is normally first come, first served.
• Letting a friend mail your rent when the policy requires paying in person at the office.
• Allowing a guide dog or other trained assistance animal despite a no-pets policy.
• Letting you pull up carpet over a finished floor when tenants are normally not allowed to change flooring.

A reasonable modification is a structural change to the unit, its exterior, or common areas such as a laundry room or building entrance. Examples include grab bars, a ramp, widened doorways, lowered kitchen cabinets, and a door peephole for a tenant with a hearing disability.

The law protects anyone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, such as walking, seeing, hearing, or caring for yourself, plus people with a record of such an impairment or regarded as having one. It also covers a request made because of a household member's disability. It does not protect current illegal drug use.

A few small rentals fall outside the federal law: a single-family house rented by an owner who owns no more than three such houses and uses no broker, and a unit in a building with four or fewer units when the owner lives in one of them. State or city fair housing laws may still cover these rentals.

How to make a request

1. Ask in writing, even though you do not have to. Say what you need and, if it is not obvious, how it relates to your disability. You do not need to use the words "reasonable accommodation," and a family member or someone else can ask for you. The landlord must consider a request made orally or without its preferred form.
2. For a modification, describe the work. The landlord may require a description of the planned change, reasonable assurance that the work will be done competently, and any required building permits. You need the landlord's approval before you start.
3. Expect a prompt answer. An undue delay in responding can count as a denial.
4. Discuss alternatives if the landlord objects. If the landlord says your request is unreasonable, it should talk with you about another option that meets your need. You can turn down an alternative that will not work for you if your original request is reasonable, and the landlord cannot insist that you move to a different unit instead of approving a reasonable modification.

What proof a landlord can ask for

What a landlord can request depends on what it already knows:

• Disability and need both obvious or known: nothing more. A tenant who uses a walker and asks for a closer parking space does not have to document anything.
• Disability obvious, need not obvious: only the information needed to show why the change is needed. A wheelchair user asking to keep an assistance dog may be asked how the dog relates to the disability.
• Disability not obvious: reliable information that you have a disability, that describes the change, and that shows how it relates to the disability.

That information can come from you, such as proof that you are under 65 and receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), or a credible statement. It can also come from a doctor or other medical professional, a peer support group, a non-medical service agency, or another reliable third party who knows about your disability. A landlord generally does not need your medical records or a diagnosis, and it must keep what you provide confidential.

Who pays for accommodations and modifications

The landlord covers the cost of an accommodation unless it is an undue financial and administrative burden, and HUD and Justice Department guidance says it cannot charge an extra fee or deposit as a condition of granting one. It can still charge you for damage you cause, the same way it charges other tenants.

In private housing, you pay for a modification, with one exception: in a building of 4 or more units first occupied after March 13, 1991 (with an elevator, or a ground-floor unit if not), features the law required from the start, such as doorways wide enough for a wheelchair or an accessible entrance, may be the housing provider's cost. The landlord cannot raise your security deposit, require special liability insurance, or make you use its contractor. If it wants costlier materials to match its look, it pays the difference. You maintain a modification only you use, such as a lift inside your unit, while the landlord maintains one in a common area it normally maintains, such as a lobby ramp.

When you move out, the landlord can require you to restore interior changes at your expense, but only where that is reasonable and it asks you to:

• Removing grab bars is a reasonable request, but removing the wall reinforcements behind them is not.
• Narrowing widened doorways is usually not required.
• Putting back cabinets and a sink you lowered is a reasonable request.
• Exterior and common-area changes, such as a ramp at the front door, never have to be removed.

If it is needed to make sure restoration money will be there, the landlord can negotiate payments into an interest-bearing escrow account, a separate account held for that purpose. Payments are spread over a reasonable period, the total cannot exceed the restoration cost, and the interest belongs to you. A landlord cannot require escrow from every tenant who asks for a modification.

Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a provider that receives federal financial assistance, such as a public housing agency, must make and pay for structural changes you need, unless they would be an undue financial and administrative burden or a fundamental change to the program, or the provider can meet your need another way, such as moving you to an accessible unit. A roll-in shower is your expense in a private apartment but the provider's in assisted housing. A private landlord does not fall under this rule just because it receives Housing Choice Voucher payments on your behalf.

State law can go further: New York's Human Rights Law lists reasonable modification of common areas as part of the owner's duty to accommodate.

When a landlord can say no

A landlord can deny a request only if:

• The person asking, or the person it is for, does not have a disability.
• There is no disability-related need for the change.
• It would impose an undue financial and administrative burden, judged case by case on its cost, the landlord's resources, the benefit to you, and cheaper alternatives that would work.
• It would change the basic nature of the landlord's operations, such as asking a landlord that offers no transportation to drive you to the grocery store.
• Your tenancy would pose a direct threat to others' health or safety or would cause substantial physical damage to others' property that no accommodation can reduce. That finding must rest on objective evidence about you, such as recent conduct, not fear or stereotypes about a disability.

Assistance animals after HUD's 2025 and 2026 changes

HUD withdrew its 2013 and 2020 assistance animal guidance effective September 17, 2025, including the 2020 position that pet fees could not be charged for emotional support animals. In a May 22, 2026 memo, HUD said it will pursue a complaint about a refused pet-policy waiver only when the animal is individually trained to do work or perform tasks related to the disability, and that it no longer treats requests for untrained emotional support animals as reasonable by default. The Fair Housing Act and HUD's regulation, which uses a guide dog as its example, did not change, and you can still sue a landlord in court whatever HUD decides. New York's Human Rights Law expressly includes an animal used to alleviate the symptoms or effects of a disability. For the full rules, see service animals vs. pets in rentals.

If your request is denied

You can file a complaint with HUD within 1 year of the denial, online or by calling 1-800-669-9777, and HUD investigates at no cost to you. You can also file a lawsuit in federal or state court within 2 years, whether or not you go to HUD first, and time while a HUD complaint about the same denial is pending does not count toward the 2 years. Fair housing protections covers the complaint process and state agencies, and retaliation protections covers what to do if a landlord punishes you for asking. Your other core rights as a renter are summarized in your basic rights as a tenant.