Checking your letter before you send it

Check the licence first, because they will

Every state licensing board publishes a searchable register, and a careful housing provider will spend about a minute in it. Search the name and licence number printed on your letter. If nothing comes back, or the licence has expired, or it was issued by a different state from the one you live in, you have found the problem before it found you.

Then read it as a stranger would

• Does it identify the clinician at all: name, credentials, licence type, number, issuing state and expiration? A surprising number of purchased letters carry none of this, and a document nobody can check is an assertion rather than evidence.
• Does it say you have a disability within the meaning of the Fair Housing Act, and that the animal is needed because of it? Those are the two facts. A letter that describes your condition warmly and never says the second thing has not done its job.
• Does it avoid naming your diagnosis? It should. That is not an omission, it is the correct scope, and a letter that discloses more has handed over information you cannot take back.
• Does it claim public access rights, or call your animal a service animal? If so, it was written by somebody who does not understand the distinction, and that single sentence can undermine everything else on the page.

The state-specific check

Some states require more on the face of the document. California requires the licence type, number, jurisdiction and effective date, and a thirty day client-provider relationship behind it. Montana requires licence type, number and effective date. Arkansas, Iowa and Louisiana each impose their own conditions. A letter that satisfies the general standard can still fail a state one, so check your own state page.

If you find a problem

Go back to whoever wrote it and ask them to reissue. A genuine clinician will add a licence number without hesitation, because it is public information on a board register. A service that will not, or that cannot be reached, has told you what you bought, and it is better to learn that now than in a reply from your landlord.

The thing a letter cannot do for itself

Prove it is genuine. A housing provider handed a PDF has no way of knowing where it came from. A letter issued here carries a six digit ESA ID and a public verification page, so a provider can confirm the letter is real and current in one step, and sees nothing about your health when they do.