Why this is no basis for a Maryland association to change its pet policy

The tempting inference — HUD will not charge, so a board can deny an emotional-support-animal request — is exactly the inference the document does not support.

Three reasons, specific to Maryland.

State law is independent. Maryland's own fair-housing framework and the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights operate on their own terms. A federal enforcement office declining to charge says nothing about what Maryland law requires, and a board relying on the memorandum has no defence grounded in it.

Private suits do not need HUD. A resident can sue directly. The memorandum reduces the chance of a government charge; it does not reduce exposure to a plaintiff with counsel and a fee-shifting statute.

Maryland associations now have a second regulator with an interest in how they treat owners. Since 1 October 2025 the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division has had enforcement jurisdiction over every violation of the Condominium Act and the HOA Act, and since 6 July 2026 a new COMAR chapter defines an “abusive” practice to include taking unreasonable advantage of “the reasonable reliance by the consumer on a person to act in the interests of the consumer.”² That is a new and untested overlay on association decision-making generally.

The category-level statement a board can rely on is narrow: federal enforcement posture has changed, the underlying obligations have not, and the request in front of a board still has to be assessed on Maryland law and the Fair Housing Act as written.

The authorities the memorandum leans on

It was prompted by Executive Order 14219, 90 Fed. Reg. 10583 (19 February 2025), and cites two decisions that are worth knowing because they predate the policy and survive it:¹

• Henderson v. Five Properties LLC, 2025 WL 1951763 (E.D. La. 16 July 2025), for the proposition that “HUD's Notice is unpersuasive” — a district court declining to defer to the 2020 guidance.
• Vorchheimer v. Philadelphian Owners Association, 903 F.3d 100 (3d Cir. 2018) — a condominium-association accommodation case from the Third Circuit.

Neither is Maryland authority. Maryland sits in the Fourth Circuit, and the memorandum cites no Fourth Circuit decision on the point.

Where Maryland's pet law actually stands

The state legislature did nothing here in 2026. Maryland's 2026 session considered an oversight division and an owners' bill of rights, and no pet-specific or assistance-animal-specific community-association bill was filed at all — a verified absence, not an omission in our reporting. Flags, clotheslines and rain barrels produced no 2026 bill either.

What Maryland did enact that touches this area indirectly is Chapter 375 of the Acts of 2025 (HB 785), which bars condominiums, HOAs and cooperatives from prohibiting a licensed family child care home, classifies the use as residential, and limits what an association may charge for it. It is the same structural move — a protected use that a declaration may not ban — applied to a different subject.

What to watch next

Whether HUD converts the memorandum into a rule. Guidance can be reversed by the next memorandum; a regulation cannot. Nothing has been proposed.

Whether the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights says anything. Other state civil-rights agencies have responded publicly when federal enforcement narrowed, stating that state protections are unaffected. We found no published Maryland response. Its absence is a live gap for Maryland boards, because the state-law question is the one that actually governs them.

The first Fourth Circuit or District of Maryland decision to address the rescinded guidance. Courts were already splitting on how much deference the 2020 notice deserved; its withdrawal removes the document without answering the question underneath it.