MAA — Mid-America Apartment Communities — is one of the largest apartment owner-operators in the Southeast and Southwest, and its published pet policy is genuinely different from its peers in a way that matters if you have an emotional support animal.
Everything below is quoted from MAA’s published pet-policies page, read on July 27, 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
The unusual part: no breed or weight restrictions
MAA states:
“MAA Communities are a welcoming, pet-friendly environment with no breed or weight restrictions.”
Among large operators this is uncommon enough to be worth calling out. The breed list is the single most common reason an ESA owner has to escalate to a formal accommodation request — AvalonBay publishes a named restricted-breed list plus all their mixes, and Cortland publishes both a breed list and an 80-pound cap. At MAA, on its published policy, that fight does not exist for a dog.
If your ESA is a dog and your only problem was going to be its breed or its size, MAA’s published policy has already solved it.
The rule that catches MAA residents instead
The restriction MAA does publish is on species:
“You may only have and keep an animal that is considered a common domesticated household animal that is suitable for living in an apartment community. Common domesticated animals are domestic dogs, cats, fish, and birds.”
Read that list carefully, because it is narrower than it first looks. Rabbits are not on it. Guinea pigs, hamsters, rats and ferrets are not on it. Reptiles are not on it.
Those are all animals people genuinely keep as emotional support animals, and under MAA’s pet route none of them is permitted — not restricted, not fee-bearing, simply not on the list. If your ESA is one of them, the pet application is not a route with a bad price. It is not a route at all.
That is precisely the situation the reasonable-accommodation route exists for. Federal fair-housing law is not limited to dogs and cats the way ADA service-animal rules are, so an animal outside a landlord’s pet list can still be the subject of an accommodation request. Being honest about the gradient: the further the animal sits from a common household animal, the more the request turns on whether accommodating it is reasonable in that specific building, and the more your documentation needs to explain the need rather than assert it. A rabbit in an apartment is a much easier case to make than livestock.
The rest of MAA’s published pet rules
- Two-pet cap. “There is a maximum of two pets per household.”
- Vaccinations. “Animals must be current on all vaccinations required by law.”
- Money. A one-time non-refundable pet fee due at move-in plus monthly pet rent, with amounts differing by community and number of pets. The worked example MAA publishes is MAA Fallsgrove: $350 for one pet, $525 for two, and $30 per pet per month.
Those figures are worth holding onto for one reason. Over a year, a single pet at that community costs $350 up front and $360 in pet rent. That is the scale of what the pet route costs and the accommodation route does not — which is also why it is worth getting the route right the first time rather than paying to be in the wrong one.
MAA does not publish an assistance-animal policy
As read on July 27, 2026, MAA’s pet-policies page covers pets only. There is no mention of service animals or assistance animals, and no published description of how a reasonable-accommodation request is taken.
That is not a refusal — most large operators keep the accommodation process off the marketing pet page — but it does mean the process is not something you can look up. You have to ask your community for it by name.
How to ask at an MAA community
- Ask for the reasonable-accommodation process specifically, in email, rather than filling in the pet application. The pet application is what triggers the fee and the pet rent.
- If your animal is a dog or cat, say clearly that you are requesting an accommodation for an assistance animal, and attach documentation of a disability and a disability-related need. MAA’s lack of breed and weight restrictions means there is much less to argue about than at most operators.
- If your animal is not a dog, cat, fish or bird, name that fact up front. Your request is asking for an exception to a published species restriction, and it is far better to say so than to have the leasing office discover it. Explain what the animal does for you.
- Ask who reviews it. If your community routes accommodation requests to a portal, read how PetScreening reviews them or what OurPetPolicy requires first — both may contact the professional who signed your letter.
- Ask about fees in writing. An approved assistance animal has long been treated as not a pet, which is why pet fees and pet rent have generally not applied. HUD withdrew its assistance-animal guidance notices in September 2025 and issued narrower enforcement guidance in May 2026, so the federal enforcement picture is less settled than it was — the Fair Housing Act and its accommodation rules are unchanged. See what HUD’s 2026 guidance actually means. Get the answer in writing rather than assuming it.
What an approval does not change
Vaccination requirements that apply to every animal in the building are reasonable and generally still apply. So does damage liability, so does keeping the animal under control, and so does not being a nuisance to neighbors. An accommodation changes which rules apply to your animal as an animal; it does not change your responsibilities as a resident.
If you need documentation first
We connect you with a licensed mental-health professional in your state who evaluates whether an emotional support animal is appropriate for you, and issues a housing letter if it is. See how the evaluation works, or start from the property-manager policy hub. If your request has already been refused, what an apartment can and cannot deny covers which grounds hold up.
Sources
Quotations are from MAA’s published pet policies page, read July 27, 2026, including the MAA Fallsgrove fee example given there. We are not affiliated with MAA and this page is not endorsed by them; where MAA’s published material has changed since, theirs is current and this is not.