What HUD's changes mean for ESAs and Assistance Animals | John Bradford

A Podcast | John Bradford

Pete Neubig: Welcome everybody to the NARPM Radio Podcast. I'm your host, Pete Neubig, and we have an incredible guest today. We have John Bradford, founder and CEO of Pet Screening, and he used to be a property manager like I did. He came to the dark side, so he used to own Park Avenue Properties out in North Carolina, and you were in a couple other markets too, John, with Park Avenue, weren't you?

John Bradford: Yeah, we were in a couple of southeastern states because we were doing institutional management, so as the institution went to other states, they drove us along.

Pete Neubig: So, John grew a single-family property management firm, correct? Most of your stuff was single family?

John Bradford: Yup. It was. It was all my stuff.

Pete Neubig: And you exited, what year did you exit, 22?

John Bradford: 2020.

Pete Neubig: You exited in 2020? Okay, right after me. Okay, I exited in 2019, John exited in 2020. John is one of the most interesting men in the world. He was a congressman for a little while, created his own PM firm, sold that, started Pet Screening. When did you start Pet Screening?

John Bradford: 2017. For three years, I was doing politics, property management, and Pet Screening, all three things.

Pete Neubig: Uncanny. Well, John was one of the leading thought leaders for property management and now he is the main thought leader when it comes to all things pets. And I asked John to be on this program. I actually reached out to him. Believe it or not, I get many people that reach out to me, want to be on the program. I deny most of them because if they don't have content for small business owners or property management business owners or property management specific, I deny them. But I reached out to John because, John, HUD, what are they doing? They're changing everything or making changes, especially when it comes to pets and ESAs and what's the other one? It's ESA and-

John Bradford: Assistance animals.

Pete Neubig: Thank you, assistance animals. So, can you talk to our listeners what it was and then maybe some of the things that's changed that they have to be on the lookout for?

John Bradford: Yeah, so it's a couple of things. Look, Pet Screening, we're a nine-year-old company and across our nine years, this will be the third policy shift. So, I think the first takeaway for anyone is policy changes. It has changed in the past. It will change tomorrow and it will change again in the future. So, it's one of those things. It's just with the political winds of different people coming in and out of office, different ideologies, different parties, just agency leaders see things differently. And so, assistance animals, I remember years ago when I started Pet Screening, the whole industry relied on a document. It was a document back from 2013. It was called the HUD 2013 memo. And so, when I launched Pet Screening in 2017, that was a four-year-old document at the time. And I remember going up to Washington DC. I was serving in the House of Representatives. I remember going up to DC out of North Carolina and meeting with them, I think she was the Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Fair Housing and took my attorney with me and we met with her and we were explaining what Pet Screening was doing. And we were really trying to make sure we lived to what that document, 2013 document was all about. The document left a lot to be desired. There was a lot of silence in the document, meaning HUD didn't really say one way or the other. And so, we were trying to get clarity. And we did get clarity because no one, Pete, had ever thought about screen the pet or an animal ever. I had created this category for property managers. You talked about me being a property manager. I love to say I started PetScreening, it was by a property manager for property managers. So, I know where the bodies are buried out in the field, just like you do. You and I, we come from doing this industry and so you learn a lot.

Pete Neubig: You have the scars, the wars.

John Bradford: You do, yeah. And you know kind of the exits and the workarounds that residents and tenants will try to do to pull a quick one. And after doing it for a while, I wanted to create a platform that would just help the industry better manage pet policies and of course, assistance animals. And so, when we left that office back in 2000, and I think we were visiting her in probably 2019. So it was, I launched in 17, this was fast forward 19. So now this 2013 document was sitting here for six years, still in play. Well, in 2020, a new document came out and Pet Screening had influence on that document. HUD, in fact, thanked us. And so, some of the rules changed. So that was yet a new policy shift. And so, we've been living under that document. Then in 2020, let's see, 2024, I think it was the next year, maybe it was right, 2024 or 2025, excuse me, the Loper versus Bright ruling came out from Supreme Court and the Chevron doctrine was rescinded. And the Chevron doctrine talked about giving agencies deference in the sense that agency, whatever rule or guidelines and rules that agency has, the court would interpret those as being lawful. And so, when the Chevron doctrine was overturned, it then said, okay, we're going to now rely on a doctrine back from, you ready for this? 1944. We're talking like a 70-year-old doctrine and it's called the Skidmore doctrine. And it talks about agency persuasion. So now the courts are using agency persuasion. And what that really means in layman's terms, Pete, for all the small business owners that are listening is there was a time when the courts relied on guidance from all the agencies, HUD and ADA and Department of Transportation. You pick a federal agency, whatever their guidelines were, the courts were interpreting those as those guidelines being basically the rule of law. Well, when the Chevron doctrine got rescinded, basically the courts were saying, no, Congress and the Senate make laws, agencies give guidance, that's it. And guidance is not the same thing as laws. So, then it meant persuasion. So now how does an agency persuade the courts and how they interpret rules? And so now we're kind of living in this persuasion thing under the Skidmore. So then, just not too long ago, about, let's see, I'd say October of last year, 2025, the 2020 document that I told you we had, Pet Screening had a little bit of influence on, that document got rescinded. And now we're sitting in 2026, and just on a couple months ago, I know we're sitting here in August, but a couple months ago back in, it was May 22nd, it was the Friday before Labor Day weekend, or excuse me, Memorial Day weekend. Labor Day is in September, so Memorial Day weekend. The New York Times leaked an article, or excuse me, leaked, the New York Times wrote an article leaking some information regarding an internal document that HUD had released to all the directors of HUD. And what it talks about, what that document talks about at the time was that the agency, that the Fair Housing Agency under a new administration, the Trump administration, was now looking at ESAs differently. ESAs have largely been untrained animals. But what this document was directing the directors of HUD is that any complaints that were outstanding that had to do with ESAs, it was telling all the regional directors to forward those to the mothership, we'll call it, in Washington, D.C., to the deputy secretary to handle these, and that the way they were going to handle these complaints as ESAs, they were only going to consider complaints where an ESA was trained. Now, ESAs have largely been untrained, and so now that the agency internally, at least, is pointing to the fact that ESAs might have or should be trained, the question that's going to be bagged is when will HUD take a public position around ESAs being required to be trained, which really puts us all the way back, Pete, back to 2017 when I launched Pet Screening, when really assistance animals was kind of the more global term, and what I think we're going to be looking at now is ESAs can be other animals besides dogs, whereas service animals are limited to dogs and miniature horses, and ESAs can be a variety of animals, but the key denominator that they're all going to have in common is they must have training. So that's a big pivot. It's a big shift because so many of these ESAs have largely been untrained animals, so the important takeaway is it's not public guidance yet. There's some rulemaking going on, and when the rules come out, that will be a higher level of standard for the industry to follow, but for now, it's business as usual. Monica Gilroy and I did a webinar back in July about this topic, but it's a serious departure, and it'll be interesting, but in a couple years, Pete, it might swing the other way because a new administration in the future may come in and say, you know what? We're going to go back to having ESAs that's trained and untrained, and so I think if you're a property manager, you just need to be ready to pivot with these political winds and also be paying attention more than ever to your state because states have sovereignty, and states can never be more restrictive than federal law, but in the event federal law is silent on something, then the state can do whatever they want, right? It's fair game, so I think about certain... Go ahead.

Pete Neubig: Oh, see, they fill that void, right?

John Bradford: Well, they did, and I think about certain states like Florida, which has a law in the books that says that you must have a therapeutic relationship established within our state. That becomes more important if the federal law no longer recognizes ESAs, if you will, and then you have states like California, of course, that in statute recognize ESAs as being trained or untrained, so if the federal law says ESAs need to only be trained, then California, who has a law that says they can be trained or untrained, would be the governing factor, so the beauty is, you know, a beauty is all about the beholder, but if you're a property manager and you're multi-jurisdictional and you're in multiple states, you need to know how each state is handling these issues because you could have one state like California where ESAs are going to be trained and untrained, but if you got your foot over in Texas, Texas, I feel pretty confident, is going to say whatever the federal guidelines are, we're going to follow, and therefore, ESAs would, if in fact they come out public after the rulemaking and say ESAs have to be trained, then Texas would take that position, and property managers just have to know when to apply the law, and of course, at Petscreening, and we do that for all our clients, and we have tons of multi-jurisdictional clients, so they don't have to worry about this, but if you're doing it on your own, you just need to be aware, and even cities like Austin could come out with its own ordinance that could be different than the state of Texas, or a city like Denver could come out something different than the state of Colorado, or a city like Charlotte where I live could be different than the state of North Carolina, and ordinances have their own weight, so maybe an ordinance. A lot of these larger cities are having fair housing groups, and they're passing fair housing ordinances, so it really does, I think, shine a spotlight on regulatory changes happen all the time, and it does show the difference between municipal, state, and federal, and how one changing can have a downstream effect on everybody else.

Pete Neubig: So, what's the rule of thumb? Like, if federal says one thing, but then the state says another, do you follow this? You're saying follow the state law?

John Bradford: Well, okay, great question, but I'm glad you asked it. States cannot be more restricted than federal law, so federal law can set a set of standards, but a state could not come in. I mean, I'm trying to think of something that-

Pete Neubig: All right, let's just do it the other way around. Let's say states say they need to be trained, but then, I'm sorry, the Fed says that the ESA needs to be trained. Let's just say it has that, and then your state says they don't need to be trained. You need to go with the federal law on that, and they need to be trained.

John Bradford: All right, yeah, so in that example, that would be a state relaxing a standard because the federal is saying it must be trained, and then a state comes along and says, well, we don't care if they're trained or untrained in our state. They have the right to relax a standard, so in that instance, you would follow the state law because the state law would usurp the federal law because the federal law says trained only is what we recognize, and then the state says, we recognize trained only also, but we also recognize untrained, and that's our state law, so they're relaxing the standard, and that would be a great example of California.

Pete Neubig: So, if the federal government has a guideline, and let's say that guideline is the ESA must be trained, but my state says it does not have to be trained, I can follow the relaxed guideline from the state.

John Bradford: That's what you need to do is not that you get a choice because if you don't follow the relaxed standard in your state, then you'll be in violation of state law because the state would say you're being too restrictive because you're following federal law, and our state, our law is you must follow ours, which in your example, Pete, is trained and untrained, so you'd be violating law on the untrained part if you still follow the federal law.

Pete Neubig: Got it. Okay. Now, if it goes the other way around, and the Fed says they can be untrained, but then the state says they have to be trained, you're saying the state is not allowed to do that. They can relax the guideline, but they cannot add to the guideline. That's right. Got it.

John Bradford: Correct. They can't be more restrictive because that would be an example of the state making it harder.

Pete Neubig: Right. Have we seen where states don't realize this, and they have more restrictive guidelines? I'm not saying animals, but just in general?

John Bradford: Yeah, we have. The state of Florida talks a lot about you must see a health care provider in the state of Florida. That is more restrictive than the federal standard because the federal standard doesn't say it has to be in a specific state. Think about military personnel who are transferring one state to the other. Largely, we've been advised by HUD that if a state is more restrictive, the best thing to do is follow the federal. Remember, you can follow state law and not realize that you're violating federal law, and then you end up in a federal district court being sued over federal law. If you follow the federal law, and in this example, a state's more restrictive, you won't get sued in the state because you're following, in this version, it would look like the federal one's more relaxed when really that's not the case at all. It's just the state was more restrictive. The point is, you wouldn't get sued by a state by following federal in this example because the federal is lesser than the state in the example that we're using here.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. A lot of these guidelines, they're left for interpretation as well, and that's the biggest challenge. If I'm a property manager in Texas or Louisiana or wherever, and I'm not sure what the state guidelines are, can they get on the Pet Screening website, or can they reach out to you guys to find out?

John Bradford: Yeah, they can reach out. They can reach out to me. Obviously, we're not a law firm. Right, but you keep up with what they advise on. We can guide them. Yeah, we can absolutely guide them. I'm John, john.petscreening.com. Pretty straightforward. We had the ruling in Louisiana. There's a ruling where Henderson versus five, five-star property management, where a federal court said that a property manager could in fact charge ESA fees, but that was a very narrowly tailored for Louisiana only. We've had lots of people ask if they can charge ESA fees, and I would not go running and charging ESA fees quite yet. Of course, as the federal government unpacks, as HUD unpacks, trained versus untrained, there's probably a time coming near us real soon where you can, you may be able to. I use the word may because I don't know what state someone lives in, but if your state doesn't express otherwise, you might be able to charge for untrained ESAs at some point, but we got to wait for the rulemaking to finish and for those rules to come out.

Pete Neubig: Take me through an ESA and the definition from 2017 to 2026 because it's changed a couple of times, right? For example, ESA could be almost any animal or any-

John Bradford: It used to be before 2020, but in 2020, it came out and said that it had to be like domestic animals. I remember before 2020, back, we'll pick on 2017 when I launched PetScreening, there were snakes everywhere. I mean, snakes, snakes, snakes. When the guidance came out in 2020, it was January 28th was the date, by the way, I remember it. It said no reptiles except turtles. That was the one that made the cuts, turtles. And so, it was amazing the number of snakes that went away on January 29th of 2020. It just, it's amazing what a set of guidance will do. So that was a big change.

Pete Neubig: I remember the big, I remember the big, the big case, I think it was United Airlines when the lady brought, what was it like a chicken or a peacock on the plane?

John Bradford: Yeah. I tried to get it on the plane.

Pete Neubig: And it said it was an emotional support animal.

John Bradford: Yeah. And the airline industry, Pete, operates under the Air Carrier Access Act, it's the ACAA, which is governed by the Department of Transportation because you're moving people around. Of course, that's a, even though they have an assistance animal issue, they largely operate under a completely different agency than where you and I have experienced. We're under HUD and then the Fair Housing Act, because it has to do with housing. So, and then the third one is the ADA, America's Disability Act. That's for public accommodation. So that really governs, like if you went out to Walmart tonight, that's a public accommodation. Anyone is welcome to walk into Walmart.

Pete Neubig: Yeah, these fools are bringing all sorts of animals for ESAs into the Walmarts or into any kind of retail shop.

John Bradford: And they're not even allowed because under the ADA, ESAs are not even recognized, period, end of story. So, the ADA does not even recognize ESAs. But what happens is these retailers in the public accommodation space, the frontline workers are confused. They don't want to tackle that. They do have little signs posted on the doors where you'll, I've seen it at public, service animal, no pets allowed, only service animals. But people will still buy an ESA vest and try and slap it on their dog and take it in. And even though the vest says ESA, it would be well within a retailer's rights to stop someone and say, hey, your vest says ESA, emotional support animals are not allowed along with pets in this retail establishment. It's service animals only, you need to remove your dog. But the number of retail establishments that have staff that know how to handle that are probably next to none. And so therefore it just kind of goes on and happens.

Pete Neubig: Also, who wants to deal with crazy? You're crazy enough to slap on an ESA vest, bring a peacock into an airplane or a Walmart. No one wants to deal with you; you know what I mean?

John Bradford: Yeah. You think you've heard crazy? This really happened. You can Google it, check it out. A woman had; she had some sort of rodent. I want to say it was a hamster. It was either a gerbil or a hamster. She had this with her, trying to get on an airplane. Now you may or may not know, but the airline industry does not allow rodents on their planes. I don't think at any level. Because rodents, their teeth never stopped growing. And if they were to get loose, there's miles and miles of wires in these airlines and airplanes. And so, they would never, ever let any type of rodent whatsoever on an airline. Maybe there's examples where they're in steel enclosed boxes, like through some very formal medical procedure or something, but the general public, you and I would not be able to take a hamster or a gerbil or a fancy rat on an airline ever. So, this woman tried positioning and saying that her hamster was an emotional support hamster. And the airline denied her, not because of the ESA at the time, but because it was a type of rodent. So, do you know this? Well, this is the craziest thing, Pete. This woman went to the bathroom and flushed her hamster down the toilet.

Pete Neubig: What?

John Bradford: Yes. Okay. Flushed it down the toilet.

Pete Neubig: Emotional support.

John Bradford: Then she got on the airline, got to where she was going. Then she hired a lawyer and tried suing the airline for damages for having her to dispose of her hamster. It's mind-blowing.

Pete Neubig: It is crazy. Okay. So, let's see, where are we today? I know HUD is looking at changing guidelines, but where are we today? What is the definition of an ESA right now?

John Bradford: Well, I mean, ESAs are still, you know, we're still operating under- Dogs and small horse thing? Is it- Yeah, no, no. Dogs and small horses or miniature horses are still exactly the same. ESAs are still a group of, just think of domesticated animals. There's still this unique animal provision. So, like maybe a monkey for someone who's a quadriplegic, if a monkey, you know, was trained to administer medicine because monkeys have fingers and dogs have paws and horses have hooves. But, you know, it's again a very narrowly tailored example, but perhaps a legitimate one. But where we are today is until the rulemaking is released, ESAs can still be trained or untrained. There is obviously internal guidance in that the agency for complaint reasons is looking at trained animal cases only. I just think there's a lot of other case law that's out there, a lot of other fair housing advocacy groups that are using precedent. So, I would not be running around and only accepting trained ESAs at the moment until this new rulemaking process is finished. So, and I hate to say business as usual, I would just say we have a peek under the hood as to what is probably coming. And so preparing for that and Pet Screening is very much, you know, involved and engaged as we ever have been. I mean, we broke the stories of the industry. It was a holiday weekend and I'm out on a Saturday doing a video letting the industry know this article broke from the New York Times. And then we were on the phone confirming with our resources within HUD that the document that had been leaked was in fact authentic. Because I was just curious, was this document, even though it was an internal document, is it even legitimate? Or did someone make it up? And it is in fact a legitimate document. And the agency published that internal document on their website for everyone to see. They were never really trying to hide it, I don't believe. It was just an internal document that got leaked.

Pete Neubig: So, if I was a betting man, I would think that the trained ESA is going to come down the pipeline at some point.

John Bradford: It feels that way. And that means like psychiatric type dogs that have some sort of training. The real question is, it's these online mill providers is, you know, I worry that the mill providers are going to quickly pivot and say, oh, you can have an ESA training. Here's a training module that you can buy for an extra $59 and train your dog on your own and it'll be approved. And so, you know, we have to look out for, I mean, capitalism is alive and well, and these mill companies who are not credible whatsoever, they're already starting to pivot. I'm already seeing ads on Facebook where they're talking about, did you know your ESA can be trained? I mean, they're already adjusting. It's unbelievable.

Pete Neubig: So, I remember back in a day, you know, you had to have like a certificate for your ESA and there was widespread fraud of you could just buy these certificates online. Then we got Wise who is the property managers and we kind of fought that. Then they were hiring like a psychiatrist or whatever to have one session. The psychiatrist would give them a certificate for an ESA. Then we kind of fought that. What's the big fight that PetScreening is fighting right now with ESAs?

John Bradford: Well, it's just really the credible providers. Like who truly, I mean, look, tell them, I mean, you and I are having this podcast and we're thousands of miles apart. So, telehealth, I mean, COVID proved that telehealth is real and you really can see a healthcare provider and get a legitimate diagnosis. So, it's trying to separate the legitimate, credible healthcare providers who are truly diagnosing their patients for a need for an animal versus those that are just formulaic in nature. They're just having some therapist or psychologist or somebody getting some answers, never having an interaction, a true patient, new knowledge, personal knowledge, patient knowledge. And it's just trying to separate the good actors from the bad actors and the healthcare providers. And that's really the fight we've been fighting for quite some time and really trying to make sure that the agency understands that if you make these rule changes, it's not hard for some of these groups to go quickly try and change the way they do business to meet those standards. So how do we make sure that those groups that were not credible in the past can't make one small change and now all of a sudden be credible because they're not. Some of them offer refunds, I mean, Pete, here's the storyline. If you come here and get our process and we give you a letter and then your letter doesn't get you in with your ESA, then you come back and we'll give you a full refund. Now, I don't know about you, but any medical provider I've ever gone to in my life ever has never offered me a refund.

Pete Neubig: No, never. Exactly.

John Bradford: And let me tell you why they're offering a refund. It's because of PetScreening, because we deny them. And those patients, I'll do patients in air quotes, they go back to them and bitch and say, hey, I didn't get this letter, didn't work. And so, they give them a refund. So, they're offering the refund because PetScreening is standing in their way, but not everybody is even aware of PetScreening. So, some still get through.

Pete Neubig: That's right. Yep. I mean, because if you're just a property manager, you got a thousand things going on, you're stressed out, busy, working crazy hours. Somebody comes in and it looks real and like, hey, they got this. They got this document. Most of us are just going to take the document. Most of us are.

John Bradford: You're right. I mean, Pete, have you heard my Carla Black story?

Pete Neubig: Tell us.

John Bradford: This is true. Yeah. So, there's a therapist out of California, Carla Black. I mean, HUD knows who she is. She was renowned for seeing patients, issuing these letters.

Pete Neubig: Oh, start that story again, Johnny.

John Bradford: We there's a therapist out of California named Carla Black and she's not HUD even. I mean, I remember HUD having her on their radar because she was probably one of the first, I would say, mill like providers doing these in volume. Now, in all fairness, she was seeing her patients doing it online, but she did so many of them. It just it was rubbing HUD the wrong way. Well, in 2020 or 2021, she passed away. We still get letters from Carla Black today.

Pete Neubig: Oh, it's like she's a Democrat. She's still voting.

John Bradford: No, she's a, let's put it this way. Like someone's got their Ouija board out because she's deceased and I'm not making you lie with that. And she's passed away. That's sad. But the point is, how do you still get a letter from Carla Black when she's deceased? And the point is people are still going and using their letters from a decade ago and they're updating them using tools to make it sound like they saw Carla yesterday. We know that she's deceased and has been deceased for five years.

Pete Neubig: Five, six years. Yeah. Crazy. Any new movement on assistance animals?

John Bradford: Well, assistance animals is just a more larger global term. It's really was bifurcated in 2020 to service unfollowing or mirroring the ADA. And then ESAs was purely created by the, really by HUD and the Fair Housing Act. So service animals are still largely the same as they are under the ADA. No real changes there. The real focus is on ESAs.

Pete Neubig: And you're seeing a lot less fraud when it comes to assistance animals, correct?

John Bradford: Well, I mean, there's still a lot of fraud out there. Fraud is a higher legal standard, meaning someone's just flat out lying and faking it. It's tougher to prove service animal fraud because no documentation is needed. You can't request any documentation. So, it's really up to the person and how they answer the questions. And the reality is, if they give the right answers and they're lying, you don't know. PetScreening doesn't know they're lying. You don't know that they give the right answers on the record. It is what it is. But if something were to happen, whatever answer they gave in a PetScreening, we document it in writing. So, if they say that they give a task and they just completely fabricated it, and then their dog goes and kills a child, they're going to get on a court. They're going to get in a courtroom and they're going to say, oh, you said your dog was trained to do this. Give us examples of your dog doing that. And that's when that fraud will really surface. The sad part, it'll probably, it'll probably be too late.

Pete Neubig: Yeah. Was that always the case, John, where they didn't have to give any documentation?

John Bradford: For service animals, well, let me say always. That only changed in 2020. It was not that way up to 2020. In 2020, it changed and it has been that way since 2020.

Pete Neubig: Got it. So, okay. Because I thought when we first started doing business with you back in 2017, because we were one of your first clients that we could actually ask for documentation for a service animal.

John Bradford: That's because your memory serves you correct. That's because assistance animals was the global term for both service and ESA and they were considered one bucket but in 2020 that bucket got broken up into two and And and then we've been living under that standard sense.

Pete Neubig: Got it. Okay, so oh interesting so I bet you now there's actually more Potential fraud but we don't even know on the assistance animals than on the ESA because the ESA they have to show documentation That's right in service animals.

John Bradford: they don't have to really, they don't have to just think about going to a Walmart tonight with your service animal It's not like Walmart can say give me your proof. It's really your word

Pete Neubig: they can actually it's actually illegal for them to it's illegal for us to ask them for proof

John Bradford: Well, you can't add you cannot ask for a documentation but you can't ask but you can't ask the two questions and there's a two question set and how they respond to that question is very meaningful and at PetScreening we capture that in writing and then we evaluate it our legal team evaluates it so, I mean they can give a perfect answer and there's nothing anyone can really do about it But at least that perfect answer is on the record so in the event that dog went and did something egregious they would have to defend this answer they gave and if they give a wrong answer you can deny Yeah, because well and a lot of people give a wrong answer because they're so confused with that they don't know what they have either they'll say they have a service animal and then they'll say my service animal gives me emotional support. they don't even know they don't know All this is because they don't want to pay the pet fees you know what sadly and a lot of instances it is in our bad you know, there are bad actors who are trying to do just what you described They're not the problem It's the bad actors.

Pete Neubig: Yeah, and it's always funny though to see the high percentage of people that need these animals like I didn't realize 80% of people have a pet need it for emotional support like it just seems like it just seems like a real high percentage so I'm glad we have we have PetScreening and some of the good guys helping us on the on the fight against fraudulent pets is We're wrapping up here so John, what is one thing that you could tell folks what they can do to help you know them in their fight against fraudulent pets

John Bradford: Well, I think you know look first of all, I really love to take the position always that you know, not everybody's nefarious Not everyone's trying to break the rules and right just show a little kindness and I think if you just I think if you're consistent how you approach this of course at PetScreening we're very consistent so if you're using PetScreening, you're in really really good shape if you're going about this on your own you know, I wouldn't go in rolling your eyes or being like oh my god This stuff is fake because that predetermined bias can really bite you in the behind if you're on the record on Facebook forum making fun of these people that stuff believe it or not can come back and haunt you. I think you just take every single request Individually you apply the guidance and if it meets the standard it meets the standard if it doesn't you politely tell them it doesn't and you explain why and then you know you have this interactive process and that's all I can tell people is like don't judge a book by its cover because you don't really know what someone's going through mental health There are people that really do need these animals, but they're also are bad actors We can all recognize that so but what you don't want to do is is Assume someone's a bad actor when they're a good actor because that's where it could get you in trouble And plus there are there are secret shoppers out there that are fair housing folks that will come and test you and they will push your buttons they will try to get you to entice you to say something mean or you know. they've done this a long time to kind of hit the right notes to see if you'll go Oh, this is just complete crap, you know, and then you record it so just be calm be standardized be consistent If you don't know say you don't know and go get some help PetScreening, if you're using us, you know, we'll help you every single time

Pete Neubig: Have a policy and stick to the policy train it And I don't I think not taking animals is probably not taking pets is probably not the solution to this because even if you say no pets if somebody says they have an ESA and assistance you have to take that animal. And we also know that what's the what's the latest stats on people who rent now that have a pet?

John Bradford: Well, so there are more American there are more pets in US households and kids under 18 70% of US households have pets but not all 70% surface themselves in the world of housing. So, it's around 40 ish percent pop up in housing, right? We know there's more but a lot of people still believe or not, you know hide their pets or don't disclose them. you know and so but it's you know in the 40 40 percent range.

Pete Neubig: And here's the great thing about PetScreening- so if you're not using PetScreening and I would highly recommend that you do. There's no charge.

John Bradford: Yeah, free to long-term property managing by a long-term No, no, so anyone that's in the SFR business will do a long-term management tip long-term in this definitions leases over 30 days It's completely free because the applicant pays for the screening process and that's only if they're a pet if they're an assistance animal they pay nothing. We're not allowed to charge them and we don't we don't charge the property manager nor do we charge the individual-

Pete Neubig: It's just as much work if not more work for the people.

John Bradford: It's a ton of work It's a lot of work. Absolutely, but we we just absorb that as a part of our service you know, it's why one out of every seven rentals in the country trust PetScreening in the US military is using us you know student housing manufactured housing multifamily single-family and we work hard.

Pete Neubig: The way PetScreening makes money is they're charging the the applicant a small fee.

John Bradford: An application fee. A processing fee. Yup.

Pete Neubig: That you get a lot of information so that they actually have their own Online portal so they if you have to send the dog or cat to the vet they have all their information up to date and and so it's not just the application they actually offer a service for that applicant and in one time they they pay that one time, they actually have access to that portal for that's exactly right

John Bradford: That's right. And we know Pete people will apply five different rental homes, especially on a market, they'll apply five different property managers. they only they only pay PetScreening once and they can share with all five so they're not unlike a human application fee they pay over and over and over at PetScreening they pay once for their dog or cat for that for a one-year period because that's typical long leases and then they can share it a thousand times if they want to and then every year that there's still a resident or a tenant for you we rescreen them to make sure it's the same dog that dog still vaccinated the dog didn't go bite anybody and then you know so it's a once-a-year fee while they're a resident or a tenant but it keeps the property managers out of trouble because most property managers myself included once we move someone in with the dog, they may have been there four years I never asked another question about the dog again and shame on me is how do I know that that was the same dog? How do I know they can go get a puppy? How did I know that dog didn't go bite someone at the dog park? How did I know that dog was vaccinated? so pet screens always visiting those issue sets for our clients.

Pete Neubig: That's amazing. John, if they want to get in touch with PetScreening, what's the best way?

John Bradford: John. john@petscreening.com. I'm hands-on CEO like I'm a property manager, professional property manager built it for you for people just like us Pete and then of course in go to PetScreening.com and check us out as well.

Pete Neubig: Amazing. Thanks buddy. Thanks for being here.

John Bradford: Appreciate it always. Thank you.