Maryland HOA Pet Restrictions

Maryland pet restrictions at a glance

Section 1 — Overview: How pet restrictions work in Maryland

Maryland has no statute regulating pets in community associations. Pet restrictions come instead from the recorded declaration or CC&Rs and from the rules an association adopts, and the one legal limit that reaches every community is fair housing law's assistance-animal requirement.¹ Rule-making authority depends on the type of community, and Maryland spreads that authority across three separate statutes: the Maryland Condominium Act for condominiums, the Maryland Homeowners Association Act for planned communities, and the Maryland Cooperative Housing Corporation Act for cooperatives.² All three are homegrown. Maryland never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and the three statutes stand apart — none is cross-applied to the others.²

Maryland has enacted no statutory right to keep a pet that overrides a no-pet declaration. That sets it apart from California, where Civil Code § 4715 bars any governing document from prohibiting an owner from keeping at least one pet, subject to reasonable rules.³ In Maryland, the declaration or CC&Rs governs pet-keeping, constrained by fair housing law. The dominant constraint is the assistance-animal reasonable-accommodation duty, which runs through both the federal Fair Housing Act and Maryland's own fair housing law and is enforced by the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.⁴ Nationally, Maryland belongs to the large majority of states where pet authority rests on documents rather than statute — distinguished here by a developed multi-statute structure, an appellate court system renamed in 2022, and the federal assistance-animal requirement that forms the floor in every state.⁵ What follows lays out the legal framework, the operational rules, recent legislative and judicial activity, and Maryland's place in the national picture.

Section 2 — The legal framework for pet restrictions

2A. The source of pet-restriction authority across three statutes

Pet restrictions in Maryland carry no statutory basis of their own. The recorded declaration or CC&Rs and board rules impose them, and which body of law backs that authority depends on the type of community.¹ For condominiums, the Maryland Condominium Act supplies the rule-making power: § 11-111 lets the council of unit owners, or a body it delegates to, adopt rules at a noticed open meeting by majority vote, and no rule may conflict with the declaration or bylaws.⁶ For planned communities, the Maryland Homeowners Association Act contains no single "power to adopt rules" provision — authority flows instead from the recorded declaration and bylaws, with the Act supplying enforcement mechanics such as the dispute-settlement procedure at § 11B-111.10.⁷ For cooperatives, the Maryland Cooperative Housing Corporation Act locates rule-making in the bylaws, defined at § 5-6B-01(e) as the document governing internal operation, backed by Maryland's general corporation law under § 5-6B-15.⁸ The three statutes stand apart and are not cross-applied.

The Homeowners Association Act also requires a resale disclosure package. Under § 11B-106, a seller must give a prospective buyer the recorded covenants and restrictions and related association information — pet restrictions included — before or shortly after signing the contract.⁹ That is a disclosure mechanism, not a source of pet rules and not a pet-keeping right. Maryland never adopted UCIOA, and it has no statutory pet-keeping right.³

For any pet question, the order of precedence runs: federal and state fair housing law, mandatory, first; then the declaration or CC&Rs; then the bylaws; then board rules. The rule that actually governs a given community is the declaration or CC&Rs, read against the fair housing floor — not a pet statute, because Maryland has none.

2B. Federal fair housing constraints: assistance animals

The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., bars disability discrimination in housing and requires reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services whenever necessary to give a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. The accommodation duty sits at 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B).¹⁰ Homeowners associations, condominium associations, and cooperatives all fall under it.¹¹ Permitting an assistance animal despite a no-pet policy counts as a reasonable accommodation, and because assistance animals are not pets, no-pet bans, breed limits, size and weight limits, number limits, and pet fees or deposits simply do not reach them.¹¹

The FHA's "assistance animal" category runs broader than the "service animal" category under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It reaches animals individually trained to perform tasks and animals that provide disability-related emotional support, with no training requirement at all for a support animal.¹² HUD's implementing regulation at 24 C.F.R. § 100.204, along with the 2004 HUD/DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Accommodations, lays out the analysis.¹³ HUD's more detailed 2020 assistance-animal notice, FHEO-2020-01, was withdrawn effective September 17, 2025, a withdrawal formalized in a Federal Register notice published April 6, 2026. HUD reasoned that the withdrawn guidance was not statutorily prescribed, was not consistent with the relevant statute or regulation, or did not reduce compliance burdens — and stated that conduct inconsistent with the Fair Housing Act remains subject to enforcement.¹⁴ The withdrawal removes a detailed procedural reference. It does not change the statutory accommodation duty.

Where a disability or a disability-related need is not obvious, the association may ask for reliable documentation — but it may not require registration, certification, or licensing of the animal, a specific breed, professional training for a support animal, detailed medical records, or any pet deposit, fee, or additional insurance premium for the assistance animal.¹³ An association may deny a specific assistance animal only on an individualized finding: undue financial and administrative burden, fundamental alteration, or that the animal poses a direct threat or would cause substantial physical damage no other accommodation could reduce. Denial cannot rest on breed, size, or generalized fear, and the owner remains responsible for the animal's conduct and any damage it causes.¹³ The ADA generally governs public accommodations and government programs rather than an association's internal residential operations, and it does not displace the FHA's broader protections — though it may reach association facilities open to the public, such as a clubhouse rented out to non-residents.¹²

2C. Maryland law overlay

Maryland's fair housing law, State Government § 20-701 et seq., bars housing discrimination based on disability and backs the same assistance-animal accommodation analysis; § 20-702 declares it the policy of the state to provide fair housing to all, regardless of disability among other protected characteristics.¹⁵ The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights enforces it, alongside county commissions in Montgomery and Howard counties among others, and HUD. A housing complaint must reach the Commission within one year of the alleged discrimination.¹⁶

Maryland has enacted a public-accommodations service-animal-access statute at Human Services § 7-701 et seq., which defines a service animal and, at § 7-705, penalizes anyone who denies or interferes with a service animal's access to public accommodations.¹⁷ Maryland has not enacted a service-animal misrepresentation statute, and it has no assistance-animal-in-housing documentation statute — housing accommodation runs on the FHA floor and Maryland's fair housing law instead.¹⁸ The public-accommodations access framework stands apart from the housing analysis.

On dog liability, Maryland moved to a breed-neutral rule. In 2012 the Court of Appeals — now the Supreme Court of Maryland — held in Tracey v. Solesky that pit bulls were inherently dangerous, creating a breed-specific common-law rule. The General Assembly superseded that rule in 2014 with a breed-neutral statute at Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 3-1901, which creates a rebuttable presumption of owner knowledge and liability regardless of breed.¹⁹ Maryland addresses dangerous dogs separately, by statute, at Criminal Law § 10-619.²⁰ Any breed-specific regulation in Maryland is local rather than statewide, and those local limits stand apart from private CC&Rs.¹⁹

Section 3 — Operational rules and compliance obligations

A. Enforceable pet restrictions (what holds up)

Restrictions on the number, size, weight, and type of pets, along with leash and waste rules in common areas, generally hold up when properly adopted in the declaration or CC&Rs or through the statutory rule-making process, provided they stay consistent with the governing documents.⁶ Every one of those restrictions yields to the assistance-animal accommodation requirement.¹¹

B. Handling an assistance-animal request

When a disability and the disability-related need are obvious, the association should grant the request without further inquiry. When they are not obvious, the association may request reliable documentation — but it may not demand certification, a specific breed, or professional training for a support animal, and it should respond in a timely, good-faith, interactive manner.¹³ A denial holds up only on an individualized direct-threat or undue-burden analysis, never on breed, size, or generalized fear.¹³

C. Pet fees, deposits, and insurance

An association may charge fees or deposits for ordinary pets if the declaration or CC&Rs authorize it.⁶ It may not charge any pet deposit, pet fee, or extra insurance premium for an assistance animal.¹³

D. Enforcement and disclosure

Pet violations go through a notice-and-hearing process before a fine may be imposed. For condominiums, § 11-113 requires a written cease-and-desist demand, a cure period, and an opportunity for a hearing before any sanction; for planned communities, § 11B-111.10 supplies a parallel procedure, and both let the association sue for damages or injunctive relief.²¹ Pet restrictions reach buyers of planned-community lots through the Homeowners Association Act's resale disclosure package under § 11B-106.⁹

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No Maryland bill enacted in the past 24 months speaks directly to community-association pet rules, assistance animals, or dangerous-dog law. The most consequential recent community-association legislation touched governance instead, and property managers should still note it, since it changes how the same associations that adopt pet rules must run their governance.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published opinion of the Appellate Court of Maryland or the Supreme Court of Maryland in the past 36 months has addressed community-association pet restrictions or assistance-animal accommodation. Fair Housing Act disputes over assistance animals involving Maryland associations have generally landed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland rather than in the state's appellate courts. Absent a qualifying Maryland appellate ruling, the federal assistance-animal framework under the Fair Housing Act controls.

C. Active legislative debates

The 2026 Regular Session considered a proposal to create a statewide common-ownership-community ombudsman and registry, House Bill 402, and a unit-owner bill of rights, House Bill 537 — neither targets pet rules, and no pet-specific or assistance-animal-specific community-association bill was pending.²³

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

Across the states, HOA pet treatment falls into two groups. A small group grants a statutory pet-keeping right, and California's Civil Code § 4715 — barring any governing document from excluding at least one pet, subject to reasonable rules — is the clearest example.³ The large majority, Maryland included, leave pet authority to the declaration or CC&Rs, with no pet statute of their own.¹ Every state shares the same federal floor: the Fair Housing Act's assistance-animal requirement.¹⁰ For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that a Maryland manager must apply the correct statute by community type — the Condominium Act, the Homeowners Association Act, or the Cooperative Housing Corporation Act — while the assistance-animal analysis stays uniform nationally.² Maryland's distinctive features are its developed multi-statute structure, a breed-neutral dog-liability rule that superseded a breed-specific common-law decision, and an appellate court system renamed in 2022.¹⁹

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

1. Md. Code, Real Property § 11-111 (condominium rules); Title 11 Maryland Condominium Act ↩
2. Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-101 et seq. (Homeowners Association Act); Corps. & Ass'ns § 5-6B-01 et seq. (Cooperative Housing Corporation Act) ↩
3. California Civil Code § 4715(a) (Davis-Stirling Act) ↩
4. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B); Md. Code, State Government § 20-701 et seq. ↩
5. Maryland Judiciary, "Voter-approved constitutional change renames high courts to Supreme and Appellate Court of Maryland" (Dec. 14, 2022) ↩
6. Md. Code, Real Property § 11-111 (Rules and regulations) ↩
7. Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-111.10 (Dispute settlements) ↩
8. Md. Code, Corps. & Ass'ns § 5-6B-01 (Definitions, incl. bylaws); § 5-6B-15 (applicability of general corporation law) ↩
9. Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-106 (Resale disclosure) ↩
10. 42 U.S.C. § 3604, Fair Housing Act (Office of the Law Revision Counsel) ↩
11. Joint Statement of HUD and DOJ, Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act (2004) ↩
12. 42 U.S.C. § 3604 (FHA reasonable-accommodation provision; distinct from ADA service-animal definition) ↩
13. 24 C.F.R. § 100.204 (reasonable accommodations); HUD/DOJ Joint Statement (2004) ↩
14. Federal Register, Notification of Withdrawal of FHEO Guidance Documents (Apr. 6, 2026), effective Sept. 17, 2025 ↩
15. Md. Code, State Government § 20-702 (fair housing policy) ↩
16. Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, Housing Discrimination (one-year limitations period) ↩
17. Md. Code, Human Services § 7-701 (definitions), § 7-705 (service-animal access) ↩
18. Md. Code, Human Services § 7-701 et seq. (service-animal access; no misrepresentation or housing-documentation provision) ↩
19. Md. Code, Courts & Judicial Proceedings § 3-1901 (breed-neutral dog liability) ↩
20. Md. Code, Criminal Law § 10-619 (Dangerous dog) ↩
21. Md. Code, Real Property § 11-113 (condominium dispute settlement); § 11B-111.10 (HOA dispute settlement) ↩
22. Maryland SB 758 / HB 1534 (2025 Regular Session, Chapter 512), effective Oct. 1, 2025 ↩
23. 2026 Maryland General Assembly session bill summaries (HB 402 ombudsman; HB 537 bill of rights) ↩