The standard HUD is borrowing

“Going forward, FHEO will use the training component of the ADA's definition for service animals to assess animal-related reasonable accommodation complaints under the Fair Housing Act.” A footnote keeps one difference: unlike the ADA's titles II and III, an accommodation under the Fair Housing Act “could involve a species other than a dog, provided the animal is trained to perform a disability-related service.”

So the dividing line is individual training to perform work or tasks related to the disability — not species, and not the presence of a letter.

What did not change, and this is the part to be careful about

The Fair Housing Act is unchanged. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) still requires reasonable accommodations, and HUD said so in the withdrawal notice itself: “Any actions that do not comply with the text of the Fair Housing Act continue to be subject to enforcement by the Department.” And: “Nothing in this memo affects the rights of parties to seek redress in the proper court.”

A private plaintiff can still sue in federal or state court. The case law built while the old notices were in force has not been overruled — the memorandum itself cites decisions from that period. What changed is which complaints HUD itself will take to a charge.

The memorandum also says nothing about how HUD processes complaints under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or the ADA.

The South Dakota wrinkle runs the other way

South Dakota's own statute pulls in the opposite direction from HUD's new line. SDCL 43-32-33 provides:³

“For the purposes of §§ 43-32-34 to 43-32-36, inclusive, the term, service animal, refers to any animal that serves a role for an individual with a disability as an emotional support animal, any therapy animal, or any assistance animal, and the term, disability, is a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of a person.”

An emotional support animal is inside the definition, expressly. SDCL 43-32-34 lets a landlord require “reliable supporting documentation” unless the disability or the need “is readily apparent or already known,” and SDCL 43-32-35 requires that documentation to “originate from a licensed health care provider who does not operate in this state solely to provide certification for service or assistance animals” — the letter-mill provision. SDCL 43-32-36 permits eviction and a damage fee “not to exceed one thousand dollars” for a knowingly false claim or fraudulent documentation.

The boundary matters. That chapter governs a landlord and a tenant of a rental dwelling unit. It reaches an association only where the association is itself the lessor. An association reviewing an owner's accommodation request is operating under the federal Fair Housing Act, not SDCL chapter 43-32 — and the state chapter is nonetheless the nearest thing South Dakota has to a documentation standard. Our pet restrictions page covers how that interacts with a covenant.

The practical consequence for a South Dakota association

Policy documents citing the withdrawn notices are citing something HUD says not to rely on. Any association ESA policy, accommodation form or board handbook referencing “FHEO 2020-01” or “HUD's assistance animal notice” now points at a withdrawn document.

The enforcement change is not a change in the law. HUD declining to charge a case is not a holding that no violation occurred, and the private right of action is untouched. The gap between what an agency will pursue and what a court will find is where the risk now sits.

What to watch next

Two things. Whether HUD converts the enforcement memorandum into a rulemaking, which would give it the force the withdrawn notices never had. And whether the courts — which are not bound by HUD's enforcement posture — begin to split from it. On the sourcing: the signed May 22, 2026 memorandum was read from a copy mirrored by a disability-rights organisation rather than from a stable HUD path, and anyone relying on a specific sentence should confirm it against HUD's own posting.