What this is, and what it is not

This is an internal enforcement-priority memorandum. It is not a rule, it did not go through notice and comment, and it did not amend the Fair Housing Act or any regulation under it.

Three consequences follow, and the third is the one that matters most to a board:

• It binds what HUD will charge. An administrative complaint to FHEO about an untrained emotional-support animal is now unlikely to produce a reasonable-cause finding.
• It does not bind a court. A homeowner may sue directly under 42 U.S.C. § 3613 without going near HUD, and a federal judge hearing that suit owes the memo no deference. The Fair Housing Act's accommodation duty is statutory; an enforcement memo does not narrow the statute.
• It expressly does not reach other statutes. The memo states it "does not address how the Department will process complaints against housing providers under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act."

Why South Carolina associations were unusually exposed to the 2020 notice

South Carolina has no state statute independently guaranteeing emotional-support-animal accommodations in community associations. There is no state analogue supplying a right that the federal guidance supplied in practice, and no state agency administering one — the Human Affairs Commission handles fair-housing complaints, and the Department of Consumer Affairs refers such complaints to it rather than handling them.

So South Carolina boards enforcing breed, weight, number or no-pet restrictions have been operating almost entirely off the federal notice that has now been withdrawn twice over. The administrative exposure has genuinely narrowed. The litigation exposure has not.

The clock, which moved in the same direction this year

The Fourth Circuit, which governs South Carolina, decided McGinn v. Broadmead, Inc. on February 18, 2026. It confirms that Fair Housing Act claims carry a two-year limitations period under 42 U.S.C. § 3613(a)(1)(A), and that a civil-rights claim accrues when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury.

It also left standing the district court's holding that the continuing-violation doctrine does not apply to failure-to-accommodate claims outside the hostile-workplace context — meaning the clock runs from the first refusal, and a series of later refusals does not restart it. That point was resolved on forfeiture plus an alternative holding rather than adopted as a fresh rule, so its weight is real but limited.

What has not changed

The Fair Housing Act still requires reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services where necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. A trained assistance animal is squarely within it. Nothing in the memo alters the analysis for a service animal, and nothing alters an association's exposure in a private suit brought by an owner whose request involved an untrained animal.

For the underlying framework, see how South Carolina associations may restrict pets.