Pets and assistance animals in a Lynn rental: the deposit rule, the no-pets clause, and when it has to yield

Two different questions hide under <em>can I have a pet here</em>. For an ordinary pet, Massachusetts answers only the money part: what a Lynn landlord may collect at move-in is a closed list of four items, and a pet deposit is not one of them. For an animal a person with a disability needs, the question changes shape — it becomes a reasonable-accommodation request under the state's anti-discrimination law and the federal Fair Housing Act, and the no-pets clause has to yield when the request is reasonable. This page quotes the texts of both, says what the federal government withdrew in 2025, and keeps the public-places “service animal” rules separate from the housing rules they are so often confused with.

What this page is: the statutes, regulation and ordinance that decide what a Lynn landlord may charge for a pet, whether a no-pets clause binds, and what a person with a disability may ask for — each quoted from and linked to its official text. It is not legal advice, and it names no breed, species or diagnosis as qualifying, because the texts do not. Where a rule could not be read from a primary source, the page says so instead of guessing. When it matters, read the linked source or use the free legal help on our tenant rights page.

At Lynn's current average rent of $2,342/month (September 2026 — how we compute this), the most a landlord may hold as a security deposit is that one month, $2,342, and nothing extra for the animal; the per-ZIP ceilings are on the security-deposit page.

A “pet deposit” is not among the four things a Lynn landlord may collect at move-in — c.186 §15B(1)(b)

The Massachusetts security-deposit statute does not cap pet deposits; it leaves them off the list. “At or prior to the commencement of any tenancy, no lessor or agent of the lessor may require a tenant or prospective tenant to pay, to the lessor or to an agent of the lessor, any amount in excess of the following:” first month's rent, last month's rent “calculated at the same rate as the first month,” “a security deposit equal to the first month's rent,” and “the purchase and installation cost for a key and lock.” A deposit for the dog on top of the security deposit is a fifth item on a list of four. The animal is not thereby free: paragraph (4) lets the landlord deduct from the one security deposit “a reasonable amount necessary to repair any damage caused to the dwelling unit by the tenant or any person under the tenant's control or on the premises with the tenant's consent, reasonable wear and tear excluded,” with the sworn itemized list and the receipts the paragraph demands — a chewed door frame comes out of that deposit the same way a tenant's own damage would. What the text does not settle, and this page will not guess at: paragraph (1)(b) governs what may be required “at or prior to the commencement” of the tenancy. It does not speak in words to a recurring monthly pet charge written into the lease as rent. Whether such a charge is lawful rent or a relabeled fee is a question the statute's text leaves to the courts, and we did not read the case law. The deposit's holding, interest and return rules are on <a href="/security-deposit/">the security-deposit page</a>; the full move-in list is on <a href="/cost-to-move-in/">cost to move in</a>. Source: M.G.L. c.186 §15B

For an ordinary pet, “no pets” is a term the lease may set — the right on this page belongs to a person with a disability

Nothing in the two statutes this page rests on — c.186 §15B and c.151B §4 — gives a tenant a right to keep an ordinary pet over the lease's objection, and we found no Massachusetts statute that does. A no-pets clause is a term a landlord may set, and keeping an animal against it is a lease violation like any other, with the notice-and-court route that <a href="/eviction-process/">the eviction page</a> describes; a landlord cannot skip that route for a dog any more than for unpaid rent. Where the law steps in is disability. An animal that a person with a disability needs is not handled as a pet question at all but as a request for a reasonable accommodation in the building's rules — the subject of the next four sections — and a landlord's <em>we don't allow pets</em> is the beginning of that conversation, not the end of it. Read it honestly: <em>my dog is family</em> is not a legal argument in Massachusetts housing law as we read it; <em>I have a disability and this animal is necessary to it</em> is. Source: M.G.L. c.186 §15B · M.G.L. c.151B §4 (subsections 6, 7, 7A)

Massachusetts law: refusing “reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services” is handicap discrimination — c.151B §4(7A)

Chapter 151B lists what counts as discrimination on the basis of handicap in housing, and two items on the list are the whole of the assistance-animal rule in state law: “(2) a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford a handicapped person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling; and (3) discrimination against or a refusal to rent to a person because of such person's need for reasonable modification or accommodation.” A no-pets policy is a policy; an exception to it for an animal a person with a disability needs is an accommodation in that policy; refusing to rent to someone because they asked for one is item (3). The statute names one animal outright — subsection (7) forbids refusing or discriminating “because such person possesses a trained dog guide as a consequence of blindness or hearing impairment,” and subsection (6) says the same in nearly the same words — and otherwise speaks only in the general language of accommodation; the words “emotional support animal” do not appear in it. Two limits are in the text. Reasonableness has a cost ceiling, written for the case where the owner pays: “an accommodation or modification which is paid for by the owner or other person having the right of ownership is not considered to be reasonable if it would impose an undue hardship upon the owner.” And subsection (7), which covers housing outside the publicly assisted and multiple-dwelling categories of subsection (6), “shall not apply to the leasing of a single apartment or flat in a two family dwelling, the other occupancy unit of which is occupied by the owner as his residence” — a real exemption in a city of two-families, set beside the federal one below. Complaints go to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination; the 300-day filing clock is on <a href="/tenant-rights/">the tenant rights page</a>, and the same agency's voucher lane is on <a href="/section-8-discrimination/">the Section 8 discrimination page</a>. Source: M.G.L. c.151B §4 (subsections 6, 7, 7A)

The federal layer: the Fair Housing Act, its regulation, and the one example in the text — 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(B), 24 CFR 100.204

The federal statute's sentence is the one Massachusetts copied. Discrimination because of handicap includes “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” “Handicap” is defined in §3602(h) as “a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person's major life activities,” a record of one, or being regarded as having one. HUD's regulation repeats the rule and then gives the only animal example anywhere in the binding federal text: “A blind applicant for rental housing wants live in a dwelling unit with a seeing eye dog. The building has a no pets policy. It is a violation of § 100.204 for the owner or manager of the apartment complex to refuse to permit the applicant to live in the apartment with a seeing eye dog because, without the seeing eye dog, the blind person will not have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” (The missing “to” is in the regulation as printed.) That is the entire federal text on animals: a general rule and a seeing-eye-dog example. The words “assistance animal” and “emotional support animal,” and any rule on documentation, species or online certificates, appear nowhere in the statute or the regulation; everything more specific lived in HUD guidance, and the next section is about what happened to it. The federal exemption to know about in Lynn: §3603(b)(2) takes most of §3604 off “rooms or units in dwellings containing living quarters occupied or intended to be occupied by no more than four families living independently of each other, if the owner actually maintains and occupies one of such living quarters as his residence” — the owner-occupied two- and three-family, a large share of this city's rentals. The state exemption quoted above is written for a two-family and the federal one reaches up to four units; the two lines do not match, and which law reaches a given owner-occupied Lynn three-decker is a question for MCAD or a lawyer, not this page. Source: 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(B) — Fair Housing Act (LII text) · 42 U.S.C. §3602(h) — “handicap” defined (LII text) · 24 CFR 100.204 — Reasonable accommodations (LII text) · 42 U.S.C. §3603(b) — exemptions (LII text)

HUD's assistance-animal notices were withdrawn effective September 17, 2025 — what a 2026 reader should do with older guides

Most online explanations of assistance animals in housing — what documentation a landlord may ask for, that no diagnosis may be demanded, which species count, how to treat a certificate bought online — are paraphrases of one document: HUD notice FHEO-2020-01, “Assessing a Person's Request to Have an Animal as a Reasonable Accommodation Under the Fair Housing Act,” issued January 28, 2020. It is gone. A HUD notice published in the Federal Register on April 6, 2026 lists it, and the 2013 notice before it (“Service Animals and Assistance Animals for People with Disabilities in Housing and HUD-funded Programs”), among the guidance documents the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity has withdrawn: “Effective date of withdrawal: September 17, 2025.” The notice's own words on what that means: “These documents have been removed from active use and should not be relied upon as authoritative.” What did not change: “Any actions that do not comply with the text of the Fair Housing Act continue to be subject to enforcement by the Department.” The statute and the regulation quoted above stand, and so does c.151B. What a Lynn renter should take from it: a letter to a landlord that cites “HUD guidance” for the rules on documentation is citing a withdrawn document, and so is the landlord who cites it back; the enforceable text is the statute's general duty of reasonable accommodation, and in Massachusetts the agency with a complaint form behind that duty is MCAD. The notice adds that “Guidance that is determined to be necessary will be reissued”; until something is, this page cites the statutes and nothing else. Source: Federal Register, Apr. 6, 2026 — HUD, Notification of Withdrawal of FHEO Guidance Documents (FR Doc. 2026-06624) · 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(B) — Fair Housing Act (LII text) · 24 CFR 100.204 — Reasonable accommodations (LII text)

“Service animal” under the ADA is a narrower term for public places — it is not the housing test — 28 CFR 36.104, c.272 §98A

The confusion in most arguments about animals in apartments is a confusion of statutes. The Americans with Disabilities Act regulation defines a service animal as “any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability,” and adds: “Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not service animals for the purposes of this definition.” The Department of Justice's own FAQ answers the emotional-support question for the ADA in one word and a reason: “No. These terms are used to describe animals that provide comfort just by being with a person. Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA.” That is the rule for stores, restaurants and the bus — not for the lease. Massachusetts has the same shape in c.272 §98A, which entitles a person “accompanied by a dog guide” to “any and all accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of all public conveyances, public amusements and places of public accommodation” — public places, again, not dwellings. The housing rule is the one in the sections above: an accommodation in a policy, judged by necessity and reasonableness, with no trained-dog requirement in the text and no species named but the seeing eye dog of the example. So a landlord who says <em>that is not a service animal under the ADA</em> is applying the wrong statute to a lease, and a tenant who says <em>the ADA makes you accept my emotional support animal</em> is too. Whether a particular untrained animal is a reasonable accommodation for a particular person in a particular Lynn building is exactly the question the statutes leave to the facts, and this page cannot answer it. Source: 28 CFR 36.104 — “service animal” defined (LII text) · U.S. Department of Justice — Frequently Asked Questions about Service Animals and the ADA · M.G.L. c.272 §98A — dog guides in public places

If the animal hurts someone: the owner or keeper is liable — c.140 §155 — which is what the liability half of a renters policy is for

Massachusetts puts the cost of a dog's damage on its owner or keeper by statute, with no negligence requirement in the sentence: “If any dog shall do any damage to either the body or property of any person, the owner or keeper, or if the owner or keeper be a minor, the parent or guardian of such minor, shall be liable for such damage, unless such damage shall have been occasioned to the body or property of a person who, at the time such damage was sustained, was committing a trespass or other tort, or was teasing, tormenting or abusing such dog.” The exception is the injured person's own conduct — trespass or tormenting — and a child under seven is presumed not to have done either. For a tenant that is the dollars-and-cents reason the liability section of a renters policy exists; what a policy costs against a month of Lynn rent, and what a lease may demand of it, is on <a href="/renters-insurance/">the renters-insurance page</a>. Two things this page cannot tell you: whether a given insurer excludes a given breed (a policy question we did not read), and whether a landlord may require a tenant with an assistance animal to carry liability coverage for it — Illinois forbids that by statute, and we found no Massachusetts sentence either way. Source: M.G.L. c.140 §155 — liability for damage caused by a dog

What this page does not know

Honest caveat: no public dataset counts pet-friendly units, assistance-animal requests or dog-bite claims by city or ZIP, so there are no local figures on this page — only the rules and their sources. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination publishes its own guidance on assistance animals at mass.gov; that site refuses automated requests, so this page could not read it and does not paraphrase it — and the statute itself says nothing about what documentation a landlord may ask for, so this page does not either. We found no Massachusetts counterpart to Illinois' Assistance Animal Integrity Act. The case law on pet fees, monthly pet rent and amenity fees under §15B was not read. Lynn's own ordinances on dog licensing, leashes and the number of animals in a unit sit behind a bot wall, so this page cannot say what the city requires of an animal owner regardless of the lease. Where the page says a rule is silent, that is a statement about the text we read, not a promise that no other rule exists.

Where a pet question usually goes next

The money side of an animal is the deposit, and the security-deposit page has the holding, receipt and return rules at today's rents; cost to move in has the whole list of what may be collected at signing; the renters-insurance page covers the liability coverage a dog makes worth having and what a lease may demand; and the Section 8 discrimination page walks through the same civil-rights agency and complaint clock for a different protected class. If the building's economics are the real problem, each Lynn ZIP's current average (01905, 01902, 01901) says what moving costs instead.

Page last updated October 18, 2026 · rent index data through September 2026.