How to get an emotional support animal letter in Florida

The short version

Florida has not legislated a minimum relationship length or a documentation format, so the question is the general one: is the documentation reliable, and does it come from a licensed clinician who has evaluated you. Those two things are what a housing provider is entitled to rely on.

The steps

• Complete a clinical assessment that asks about your symptoms, your history and the role the animal plays. An intake that asks only for your address and card details is not an assessment.
• A clinician licensed in Florida reviews it and decides. The decision is theirs, and it can be no.
• If it is yes, you get a letter naming the clinician, their licence type, number, issuing state and expiration, so your housing provider can check it against the Florida licensing board.
• Send the letter with your accommodation request. You do not have to hand over your diagnosis, your notes or your records.

What Florida law sits behind this

Florida has its own fair housing statute, the Florida Fair Housing Act (Fla. Stat. §§ 760.20 to 760.37), enforced by the Florida Commission on Human Relations. A state complaint runs on state law, so HUD changing its own enforcement priorities does not decide it.

Florida also legislated on emotional support animals directly, which most states have not. These are the sections that matter:

• Fla. Stat. § 760.27: Sets out what a housing provider may and may not ask for when a disability is not readily apparent, and requires supporting documentation to come from a practitioner who has personal knowledge of the disability and is acting within the scope of their practice.
• Fla. Stat. § 817.265: Makes it an offence to knowingly and wilfully misrepresent oneself as qualified for an emotional support animal, or to furnish fraudulent supporting information.
• Fla. Stat. § 413.08: Covers service animals, and penalises misrepresenting a pet as a service animal.

What you should not buy

• A registration or certificate. No federal or state register of emotional support animals exists, so nothing can register you on one.
• An ID card, vest, tag or collar. None of these is documentation and no statute gives them weight. California went as far as requiring sellers of these products to say so in writing.
• A letter from a clinician not licensed in your state.
• A letter issued by somebody who never asked you a clinical question.

A Florida housing provider handed a letter has no register to check it against, which is the reason so much of this market is worthless paper. Every letter issued here carries a six digit ESA ID and a public verification page, so a landlord can confirm the letter is real, current, and issued by a licensed clinician without being shown a single word about anybody's health.