Arkansas HOA Pet Restrictions

Arkansas pet restrictions at a glance

Section 1: Overview — How pet restrictions work in Arkansas

Arkansas has no statute regulating pets in a homeowners' association. Pet restrictions come from the recorded declaration — the CC&Rs — and the rules an association adopts, with federal and state fair housing law's assistance-animal accommodation requirement standing as the principal legal limit.^1,4 Rule-making authority splits by community type: condominiums draw their power from bylaws recorded with the master deed under the Arkansas Horizontal Property Act, Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq., while planned communities draw it from the declaration itself, with the Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq., supplying only corporate formalities.^3,2

Arkansas has never enacted a statutory right to keep a pet, so it has nothing like California Civil Code § 4715, which guarantees owners the right to keep at least one pet — pet-keeping rights here run through the declaration alone.¹² Arkansas has also not adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act.¹³ The one uniform floor is fair housing law: both the federal Fair Housing Act and the Arkansas Fair Housing Act require associations to make reasonable accommodations for assistance animals, which aren't pets.^4,5 Nationally, Arkansas sits with the large majority of states, where pet authority runs through the declaration and the only common baseline is the federal assistance-animal requirement. What follows lays out the legal framework, the operational rules that hold up, recent legislative and judicial activity, and how Arkansas compares nationally.

Section 2: The legal framework for pet restrictions

2A. The source of pet-restriction authority

No Arkansas statute creates pet restrictions — the recorded declaration imposes them, backed by board rules adopted under the association's governing documents. The framework splits by community type. For condominiums, the Horizontal Property Act governs administration through bylaws that must be recorded with the master deed, Ark. Code § 18-13-108; pet rules operate as use restrictions adopted under that recorded structure.³ For planned communities — the typical single-family HOA — no substantive Arkansas statute exists. The declaration is the sole substantive source of pet authority, and the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993 supplies only corporate scaffolding: meetings, voting, records, for associations organized as nonprofits.²

The Horizontal Property Act's scope stops at condominiums — horizontal property regimes — and doesn't reach planned communities or general HOAs.¹ For any pet question, precedence runs: federal and state fair housing law, mandatory, first; then the declaration; then the bylaws; then board rules. The practical upshot: the pet rule that actually governs any Arkansas community is the declaration, read against the fair housing floor — not a statute.

2B. Federal fair housing constraints: assistance animals

The federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., bars disability discrimination in housing. It makes it unlawful to refuse reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services whenever the accommodation may be necessary to afford a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B)).⁴ HOAs and condominium associations count as covered housing providers.⁷ Permitting an assistance animal despite a no-pet policy or a pet restriction counts as a reasonable accommodation.

Assistance animals aren't pets. No-pet bans, breed limits, size and weight limits, number limits, and pet fees or deposits simply don't reach them.⁷ The FHA's "assistance animal" category runs broader than the ADA's "service animal": it covers animals trained to do work or perform tasks and animals that provide disability-related emotional support, with no training requirement at all for support animals.⁷ Where a disability or disability-related need isn't obvious, an association may request reliable documentation — but it can't require registration, certification, or licensing of the animal, a specific breed, professional training for a support animal, detailed medical records, or a pet deposit, pet fee, or additional insurance for the assistance animal. Those online "ESA registration" products? Not legally required, and they satisfy no documentation standard.⁷

An association may deny a specific assistance-animal request only on an individualized finding — that the accommodation would impose an undue financial or administrative burden, would fundamentally alter the provider's operations, or that the specific animal poses a direct threat to health or safety or would cause substantial physical damage no other accommodation could reduce. A denial can't rest on breed, size, or generalized fear, and the owner still answers for the animal's conduct and any damage it causes.^7,14

One recent development carries real operational weight. HUD's step-by-step guidance on these requests, FHEO Notice 2020-01, issued January 28, 2020, was withdrawn September 17, 2025 as part of a deregulatory review implementing Executive Orders 14192 and 14219, and HUD finalized the withdrawal of eight FHEO guidance documents in an April 6, 2026 Federal Register notice.¹⁵ The Fair Housing Act and its accommodation duty remain fully in effect — what changed is that the detailed federal best-practice framework associations relied on no longer carries authority.¹⁶ The ADA stands apart: it governs public accommodations and government programs generally, not the internal residential operations of an HOA, and it doesn't displace the FHA's broader assistance-animal protections for residents. It may reach HOA facilities open to the public, such as a clubhouse rented out to non-residents.

2C. Arkansas law overlay

The Arkansas Fair Housing Act, Ark. Code § 16-123-201 et seq., bars housing discrimination based on disability, and at Ark. Code § 16-123-314 makes it unlawful to refuse reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services necessary to afford a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, common areas included.⁵ That language mirrors the federal standard and backs the same assistance-animal analysis. Enforcement runs through the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission, a quasi-judicial agency Act 1785 of 2001 created and HUD recognizes as substantially equivalent to the federal Fair Housing Act. Complainants may also file with HUD or bring a private action.⁶

Arkansas has enacted its own service-animal statutes. Ark. Code § 20-14-304 gives people with disabilities the right to be accompanied by a service animal in public accommodations and housing accommodations without an extra fee, while holding the owner liable for any damage the animal causes.¹⁷ Arkansas has also enacted a misrepresentation statute: Ark. Code § 20-14-310, added by Act 1002 of 2019 and effective July 24, 2019, makes it unlawful to misrepresent an animal as a service animal to a public accommodation, carrying a civil penalty up to $250 per violation.⁹ Act 268 of 2023 added a detailed emotional-support-animal subchapter, Ark. Code §§ 20-14-1001 to 20-14-1005, imposing seller-disclosure requirements, a 30-day provider-relationship requirement for ESA documentation, and fraud penalties that escalate from $500 to $2,500 for repeat violations under Ark. Code § 20-14-1004, enforceable by the Attorney General or a prosecuting attorney — while expressly stating it doesn't change existing housing accommodation rights.¹⁰

Arkansas has no comprehensive statewide dangerous-dog statute. Municipalities and counties regulate dangerous and vicious dogs, and dogs running at large, under local ordinances authorized by Ark. Code § 14-54-1102, while a separate criminal statute, Ark. Code § 5-62-125, addresses unlawful dog attacks by animals with known dangerous propensities.¹¹ Where a local authority has already adjudicated an animal dangerous, an association's own rules layer on top of that determination — they don't replace it. Arkansas has no statewide statute preempting municipal breed-specific legislation; a 2023 bill that would have banned such ordinances failed, leaving breed restrictions a matter for the declaration and local ordinance, subject always to the fair housing limit that bars applying a breed rule to an assistance animal absent an individualized direct-threat finding.⁸

Section 3: Operational rules and compliance obligations

A. Enforceable pet restrictions (what holds up)

Properly adopted, ordinary pet restrictions generally hold up in Arkansas as contractual use restrictions — limits on the number of animals, size or weight caps, permitted types, breed limits, and leash and waste rules in common areas. That reaches both condominiums, through bylaws recorded with the master deed under Ark. Code § 18-13-108, and planned communities, through the recorded declaration.^3,2 Each restriction is bound by its own terms and by reasonableness, and every one of them yields to the assistance-animal accommodation requirement under the federal and Arkansas fair housing acts.^4,5

B. Handling an assistance-animal request

When an owner requests an assistance animal, the association owes a timely, good-faith interactive process. If the disability and the need are obvious, it can't demand documentation; if the need isn't obvious, it may request reliable documentation of the disability and the disability-related need (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B); Ark. Code § 16-123-314).^7,5 It can't demand certification, registration, a specific breed, or professional training for a support animal. A denial holds up only on an individualized finding of direct threat, substantial physical damage no other accommodation could reduce, undue burden, or fundamental alteration — never on breed, size, or generalized concern.¹⁴

C. Pet fees, deposits, and insurance

An association may charge pet fees or deposits for ordinary pets where the declaration or rules authorize it — Arkansas caps nothing by statute. It may not charge any pet deposit, pet fee, or additional insurance premium for an assistance animal, since assistance animals aren't pets under the federal and Arkansas fair housing acts.⁷ The owner still answers financially for any actual damage the animal causes, a principle Ark. Code § 20-14-304 also reflects.¹⁷

D. Enforcement and disclosure

The association's governing documents do the enforcing: written notice, an opportunity for a hearing, and fines levied under the association's fining authority. Disputes that don't resolve there proceed in Arkansas Circuit Court, with civil appeals to the Arkansas Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas has no statute compelling a standardized HOA resale disclosure package, so pet restrictions reach buyers through the recorded declaration and whatever documents the seller or association provides during the transfer — buyers take title subject to recorded covenants regardless of actual notice.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

One recent enactment bears on Arkansas association pet questions.

A second bill is worth noting for context. HB1519 of 2023 would have barred municipalities from enacting breed-specific regulations. It failed its third reading on the House floor on March 14, 2023, by a 34-45 vote, and died at sine die adjournment on May 1, 2023 — leaving local breed ordinances intact.⁸

B. Recent appellate rulings

No qualifying Arkansas appellate ruling turned up. A review of Arkansas Court of Appeals and Arkansas Supreme Court opinions found no published decision in the past several years addressing HOA or condominium pet-restriction enforcement, or a Fair Housing Act assistance-animal accommodation dispute involving an association. In that absence, the federal and Arkansas fair housing frameworks control assistance-animal questions, while general Arkansas contract and covenant law, applied to the declaration, governs pet restrictions.

The closest Arkansas appellate authority on animal restrictions, Holt v. City of Maumelle, 307 Ark. 115, 817 S.W.2d 208 (1991), upheld a municipal pit-bull ban against a vagueness challenge.¹⁹ It's a constitutional challenge to a city ordinance, not an HOA pet-restriction or fair housing case — offered here only as context.

C. Active legislative debates

Breed-specific regulation remains the recurring flashpoint. Advocates on both sides have kept pressing the legislature over whether to preempt municipal breed ordinances since HB1519 failed in 2023, and the 2023 ESA fraud framework, Act 268, along with the 2025 ESA property-owner law, Act 819, show where legislative attention actually sits: assistance-animal misrepresentation, not HOA pet rules as such.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

States split into two groups on HOA pets. A small group carries a statutory pet-keeping right or detailed statutory pet provisions — California Civil Code § 4715, barring governing documents from prohibiting an owner from keeping at least one pet, is the clearest example, and Nevada's NRS § 116.335 is a second.¹² The large majority, Arkansas included, leave pet authority to the recorded declaration, with no pet statute at all. Every state shares the same federal floor: the Fair Housing Act's assistance-animal accommodation requirement. For an operator running communities across state lines, that means the assistance-animal analysis stays essentially uniform nationwide, even as the enforceable pet restrictions themselves get set community by community, declaration by declaration. Arkansas has no pet-keeping statute and no breed-specific statute beyond that federal baseline — its only animal-specific statutes are the service-animal access, misrepresentation, and emotional-support-animal provisions in Title 20, none of which displaces the fair housing accommodation duty.

HOA Weekly's Arkansas Pet Restrictions coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and courts act. The federal Fair Housing Act's assistance-animal framework applies to Arkansas associations regardless of what the state framework says.

1. Arkansas Horizontal Property Act, Ark. Code § 18-13-101 et seq. (Title, § 18-13-101; scope limited to horizontal property regimes/condominiums) ↩
2. Arkansas Nonprofit Corporation Act of 1993, Ark. Code § 4-33-101 et seq. (corporate structure and procedure for associations organized as nonprofits) ↩
3. Ark. Code § 18-13-108 (Bylaws — administration of every building constituted into horizontal property shall be governed by bylaws recorded with the master deed) ↩
4. Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) (unlawful to refuse reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services necessary to afford equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling) ↩
5. Ark. Code § 16-123-314 (Arkansas Fair Housing — disability; refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services necessary to afford equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, including common areas) ↩
6. Arkansas Department of Inspector General, Arkansas Fair Housing Commission (quasi-judicial enforcement agency working with HUD; created by Act 1785 of 2001) ↩
7. HUD, Fact Sheet on HUD's Assistance Animals Notice (assistance animals are not pets; two categories — service animals and support animals; no fee or deposit; documentation standard for non-obvious disability). See also HUD FHEO Notice 2020-01 (issued Jan. 28, 2020) ↩
8. Arkansas General Assembly, HB1519 (2023) — "To Prohibit Municipalities From Enacting Breed-specific Regulations For Animals"; read the third time and failed 34-45, died in the House at Sine Die Adjournment (no statewide breed preemption) ↩
9. Ark. Code § 20-14-310 (Misrepresentation as a service animal — civil penalty not to exceed $250 per violation; added by Act 2019, No. 1002, eff. July 24, 2019) ↩
10. Act 268 of 2023 (Ark. Code §§ 20-14-1001 to 20-14-1005 — emotional support animal seller disclosures, 30-day provider relationship, escalating civil penalties up to $2,500 under § 20-14-1004; § 20-14-1004(c) provides the subchapter does not change existing housing accommodation rights) ↩
11. Arkansas consolidated dog laws (no comprehensive statewide dangerous-dog statute; municipal authority to regulate dogs at large under Ark. Code § 14-54-1102; criminal unlawful dog attack under Ark. Code § 5-62-125) ↩
12. California Civil Code § 4715(a) ("No governing documents shall prohibit the owner of a separate interest within a common interest development from keeping at least one pet within the common interest development, subject to reasonable rules and regulations of the association."); cf. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.335 ↩
13. Community Associations Institute, Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) adoption list (Arkansas not among adopting states) ↩
14. HUD/DOJ Joint Statement, Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act (FHA covers homeowners and condominium associations; denial requires individualized analysis; direct-threat and undue-burden/fundamental-alteration standards) ↩
15. National Apartment Association, "HUD Withdraws Fair Housing-Related Guidance Documents" (April 6, 2026 Federal Register notice finalizing withdrawal, effective as of September 17, 2025, of eight FHEO guidance documents including FHEO 2020-01, Jan. 28, 2020) ↩
16. Condo Control, "HUD withdraws guidance on approving emotional support animals" (Fair Housing Act remains fully in effect; withdrawal removes the detailed federal framework, not the underlying accommodation duty) ↩
17. Ark. Code § 20-14-304 (right to be accompanied by a service animal in public and housing accommodations without extra fee; owner liable for damage caused by the animal) ↩
18. Arkansas General Assembly, HB1893 / Act 819 (2025) — codified at Ark. Code § 20-14-1005; House passed 91-1 (Apr. 7, 2025), Senate passed 33-1 (Apr. 14, 2025); Act 819 notification Apr. 17, 2025 ↩
19. Holt v. City of Maumelle, 307 Ark. 115, 817 S.W.2d 208 (1991) (Arkansas Supreme Court upheld municipal pit-bull ban against vagueness challenge; a city-ordinance case, not an HOA or fair housing case) ↩