Hosting an Evacuee's Pets When Your Lease Says No: The Written Permission to Get Before Season

Ask your landlord in writing, in a quiet month and not during a warning, for a yes that carries dates and names the animals. Two clauses in a lease can catch a host who takes in a friend’s pets: the one about who may live in the unit, and the one about animals. Read them side by side, because they do different jobs and the pet clause may be worded to cover animals you do not own.

This page is for the host, not the evacuating household. If you are the one leaving, start with our guide to evacuating to family who already have pets, and see post-disaster rental housing with pets if a disaster has already cost you your unit.

This site has no lawyer on staff, and nothing here is advice about your lease or your tenancy. Most of the documents below are federal housing rules for subsidized and public housing. If you rent from a private landlord with no federal involvement, none of them is your lease. They still show how careful drafting handles guests and visiting animals.

Read the Occupancy Clause and the Pet Clause Together

A host worrying about an evacuee’s animals usually thinks about the pet clause: the deposit, the weight limit, the breed list, the two-pet maximum. That clause is written on the assumption that the animal belongs to the person on the lease. The clause that reaches a friend’s dog sleeping in your spare room for nine days may be a different one.

HUD’s model lease

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes a Model Lease for Subsidized Programs as form HUD-90105a. Its clause 13, General Restrictions, does two things in one numbered paragraph.

• People. The tenant agrees to let other individuals reside in the unit only after getting the landlord’s prior written approval. The lease does not define “reside” and gives no number of nights.
• Animals. The tenant agrees not to “have pets or animals of any kind in the unit without the prior written permission of the Landlord”. The words are “of any kind in the unit”, not “your pets”. On its face the clause reaches a guest’s dog the same way it reaches yours.

The same clause also carves out assistance animals, for a visitor as well as for the tenant. It says the landlord “will allow animals to accompany visitors with disabilities who need such animals as an accommodation to their disabilities”. That branch is covered below.

The form is dated. The edition HUD links is stamped form HUD-90105a (12/2007), and its header prints an OMB approval expiry of 06/30/2017. As of September 29, 2026, HUD’s forms index still linked that edition.

The same fault line in three other federal rules

• Public housing leases. 24 CFR 966.4(d)(1) requires a public housing lease to give the tenant exclusive use of the unit by the authorized household, “including reasonable accommodation of their guests”. Guest is defined in 24 CFR 5.100. In our reading, this is ordinary hospitality language and not the disability-law term of art.
• Housing Choice Vouchers. 24 CFR 982.551(h)(2) says the family must ask the housing agency to approve adding any other family member as an occupant, and that no other person may reside in the unit except a foster child or live-in aide.
• Public housing pets. 24 CFR 960.707(a) lets a resident own common household pets or have them “present in the dwelling unit of such resident”, subject to the housing agency’s reasonable requirements. The resident must keep each pet responsibly, follow state and local health, animal control and anti-cruelty laws, and follow the agency’s Annual Plan policies. The word present does not require ownership, so it reaches an animal the resident does not own. Under 24 CFR 960.703, this rule covers general public housing and not developments for the elderly or persons with disabilities.

Each of these turns on the difference between residing and visiting. None settles it with a number for a private lease. So the practical question for a host is not how many nights is too many. It is who decides whether this is residing or visiting, and how you will know what they decided. You get that decision in writing, in advance, with dates on it.

Name the species

24 CFR 5.306 defines a common household pet for HUD housing programs as a domesticated animal traditionally kept in the home for pleasure, such as a dog, cat, bird, rodent (including a rabbit), fish or turtle. It excludes reptiles other than turtles and assistance animals. Where state or local law defines the pets that may be kept differently, the state or local law applies. For the public housing programs that the same subpart reaches, 24 CFR 5.318(a)(1) leaves the definition to the housing agency.

That is not your private lease. It does suggest the question to ask: name the species, because permission for pets may not cover a bearded dragon.

“Temporary” Has No Single Published Meaning

Searches for how long a guest may stay return confident numbers. The primary texts below do not supply one for guests, and the two federal definitions of temporary differ.

The federal definition with a number

24 CFR 5.318(h) is the last paragraph of the discretionary pet rules, and it is about animals that are not the tenant’s. Pet rules may exclude pets not owned by a tenant that are kept temporarily on the project premises, and pets are kept temporarily if for “less than 14 consecutive days and nights”. Three limits travel with that number.

1. It is permission for the housing provider, not a grant to the tenant. The paragraph exists so a project can keep visiting animals out. Reading it as “federal law gives you fourteen days” gets the direction backwards.
2. It concerns pets not owned by a tenant. That is the host’s case, which is why the paragraph is worth knowing about. It is not a general guest rule.
3. It reaches a narrow slice of housing. 24 CFR 5.300 limits the subpart to projects for the elderly or persons with disabilities, across three program families that include the public housing program. General public housing sits in 24 CFR part 960, subpart G, which has no visiting-pet definition. A private lease is not covered at all.

The same paragraph also says HUD encourages project owners and housing agencies to permit a visiting pet program sponsored by a humane society or other nonprofit. If you are asking a subsidized housing provider, that sentence exists.

The federal definition with no number

24 CFR 5.100 defines a guest as “a person temporarily staying in the unit” with the consent of a tenant or another household member who has authority to give it. The definition applies only for a listed set of HUD parts (part 5 subparts A and I, and parts 882, 960, 966 and 982), and that limit is part of the definition. Two federal definitions of temporary, then: fewer than 14 consecutive days and nights for animals, and no number for people. Neither reaches a private lease.

State law does not supply a number either

The sections of California and Florida law below set no day count that turns a guest into a tenant.

• Florida. Section 82.035 of the 2026 Florida Statutes defines a transient occupant as a person whose residency has lasted “a brief length of time” and was intended as transient, with no day count. The listed factors include paying minimal or no rent, having no designated space such as a room, and having an apparent permanent residence elsewhere. Minor contributions to household goods or expenses do not establish residency. This is a definition for a Florida unlawful-detainer remedy, not a rule about whether a guest breaches your lease. The older number, 82.045, no longer exists: the history note under 82.035 reads “Former s. 82.045.”
• California. The only seven-day figure in Civil Code section 1940 is one of five hotel and motel service criteria: “Occupancy for periods of less than seven days”. Those criteria take a hotel or motel occupant out of the chapter, which is the opposite of a guest-to-tenant rule. Section 1940.1’s 30-day figure protects an occupant of a residential hotel from being made to check out and re-register to keep transient status. That describes these two sections only. It does not claim that nothing else in California law sets a day count.
• Private lease templates. A guest cap of roughly ten to fourteen days within six months is often described online as a standard private lease term. None of the federal texts above uses it, and the National Apartment Association’s lease product page publishes no lease text. This page cannot say what a typical private lease contains. Your own lease is the document that controls.

What to do with that

Do not look for a number. Ask your property manager whether your friend and two cats may stay from the 3rd to the 17th, and get a written yes. The two of you now mean the same thing by temporary, and the word costs nothing to define in advance.

Then read your own lease. Find the clause about occupancy, additional occupants or guests, and the clause about pets or animals, and read them next to each other.

The Written Request: What to Ask and When

This is the site’s own suggestion, not a form any authority publishes and not legal advice. It rests on one pattern in the four federal texts above (the model lease, the public housing lease rule, the voucher rule and the public housing pet rule): they turn on approval and on the line between residing and visiting, not on a day count.

Ask in a quiet month

A no in a quiet month is a planning result. A no at 11 p.m. during a warning is a crisis. Your address is a line on your friend’s evacuation list, and our page on what to do when your county has no pet-friendly shelter tells a household to build several candidate destinations and confirm each one every season. This page is the other half: you are the host, and you can look up the lease.

Six things to put in the message

1. The animals, by species and count. Two cats and a sixty-pound dog, not “my friend’s pets”. A yes to a vague description is a yes to whatever the reader pictured, usually one small quiet animal.
2. A start date and an end date, not the word temporary. Offer a range first, such as roughly the 3rd through the 17th, with a promise to say at once if it needs to run longer.
3. Whether the answer changes under a declared emergency. Ask for the answer in the same reply. If it would be handled differently, ask them to write down what differently means.
4. Who is authorized to say yes. In a condominium, co-op or homeowners association building, the person who signs your lease may not control the pet rule.
5. What follows from a yes. A deposit, a rider, a vaccination certificate, a registration, a change to renters insurance. A yes with an unmentioned condition can be withdrawn later.
6. The reply in writing, in the channel your lease uses for notices. Keep it with your lease, not in your inbox.

What the national preparedness pages say

Ready.gov’s pet page says “Develop a buddy system.” The ASPCA’s disaster-preparedness page tells owners to ask friends and relatives outside their immediate area whether they would take in a pet. Humane World for Animals tells owners to find a trusted neighbor, friend or family member and give them a key. All three speak to the owner recruiting a host, and none addresses the host’s lease.

Humane World also advises asking hotels and motels whether a “no pet” policy would be waived in an emergency. That advice is about hotels, which rent rooms by the night. A lease clause is a term in a contract about your home, so ask your property manager because it is a sensible question, not because a humane organization told you to.

Service Animals and Support Animals Are a Separate Question

A host who reads only the pet clause could conclude they need permission for an animal that the pet rules do not reach. Three federal texts are worth knowing.

• 24 CFR 5.303(a) says the HUD pet-rules subpart does not apply to animals that assist, support or provide service to persons with disabilities, and that owners and housing agencies may not enforce its policies against animals necessary as a reasonable accommodation. The exclusion covers animals that reside in projects for the elderly or persons with disabilities “as well as to animals that visit these projects”. Paragraph (b) adds that the subpart does not limit the rights of persons with disabilities, and does not affect any authority owners or housing agencies may have to regulate such animals under federal, state or local law.
• 24 CFR 960.705(a) is the public housing counterpart. It also reaches animals that visit these developments.
• HUD’s model lease, inside the clause that bars animals of any kind, says the landlord will allow animals to accompany visitors with disabilities.

Our reading, not a sentence any of these texts writes: they are organized around what the animal does for a person with a disability, and they reach visiting animals. That is a reason to ask the question properly, not a conclusion that you are covered. Whether a particular animal qualifies, what a housing provider may ask for and how the Fair Housing Act’s reasonable-accommodation duty applies are separate, case-by-case questions. Our post-disaster rental housing page works through the Fair Housing Act analysis.

For an answer about a real building, use a legal aid organization, a lawyer licensed in your state, or your state or local fair housing agency. HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity lists an intake line, 1-800-669-9777, on its Report Housing Discrimination page as of September 29, 2026. Callers who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech or communication disabilities are directed to the Telecommunications Relay Service. That line is for discrimination on protected grounds. A plain no-pets clause applied to your friend’s ordinary pet is not what it handles.

What a Declared Emergency Can and Cannot Do

Sometimes, in some places, for a while. The three instruments below differ on almost every point, including whether they mention animals, and each prints its own end date. Read them as a description of a mechanism, not a list of protections you have.

How the power works

California’s Government Code section 8571 lets the governor suspend regulatory statutes during a state of emergency when strict compliance would prevent, hinder or delay mitigating the emergency. Washington’s RCW 43.06.220(1)(h) lets the governor prohibit other activities reasonably believed necessary to preserve life, health, property or the public peace, and subsection (3) lets the governor set the times, conditions, exceptions and areas. Every instrument built on those powers is bounded by place and time and drafted in a hurry, which is why they differ.

Washington, 2026: the one that named animals

Washington Proclamation 26-03.1 was issued August 10, 2026. Its housing section has three prohibitions with three different end dates, so one date does not describe all of them. The hosting section carries the heading “Prohibiting Evictions of Tenants Who Have Taken in Displaced Individuals and Pets”.

It bars landlords, property owners and property managers from serving, enforcing or threatening to serve or enforce any notice to vacate based on the occupancy of the dwelling by one or more individuals, “including their pets”, who were displaced from their primary residence by the wildfire emergency. As issued it ran until 11:59 p.m. on August 31, 2026.

Proclamation 26-03.2, signed August 31, 2026, restates the section to run until 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026 and widens the counties from seven to twelve. The original seven were Chelan, Douglas, Ferry, Okanogan, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima, and the amendment added Benton, Columbia, Grant, Kittitas and Whitman. The three named tribal lands are unchanged: the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Spokane Tribe of Indians. As of September 29, 2026, the governor’s proclamations index listed 26-03.3 (signed September 28, 2026) as active and 26-03.2 as amended. Proclamation 26-03.3 covers permit fees, Public Works Board funding, solid waste and rebuilding support, and has no eviction or hosting section, so the hosting protection ended at 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026. As of October 1, 2026, no newer proclamation had extended it.

Four features make it a teaching example rather than a resource.

• It is asymmetric. The prohibition covers residential dwellings anywhere in Washington, but the person you took in must have been displaced from one of the named counties or tribal lands.
• A landlord can invoke an exception alone. The prohibition does not apply if the landlord attaches to the notice an affidavit signed under penalty of perjury that the additional occupants were not displaced by the wildfire emergency, with the basis for that verification. Terms are defined by reference to Washington law, including RCW 49.60, 59.12, 59.18 and 59.20.
• The dates differ inside one document. The prohibition on law enforcement executing eviction orders was written to run until 11:59 p.m. on Monday, August 24, 2026, and 26-03.2 did not extend it. The abandonment prohibition and the hosting section were both moved to September 30, 2026. Checking one date does not check the others.
• It expired. The protection ended at 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2026. If wildfire displacement returns, check the governor’s proclamations index for a new order rather than relying on this one.

The Attorney General’s news release of August 12, 2026 described the statewide reach of the hosting protection, and it did not mention the affidavit exception. A summary is not the instrument, so read the proclamation. The release tells a renter who believes a landlord is violating the protections to contact the Attorney General’s office and file a complaint, and lists WildfireEvictions@atg.wa.gov and (360) 633-8915 for questions. It was written before the September 30 extension, so confirm the channel is still open. Proclamation 26-03.1’s recitals describe the situation this page is about: evacuated and displaced people and their household pets have taken temporary residence with family, friends and others across the state.

California, January 2025: the order that covered people only

California Executive Order N-11-25, issued January 17, 2025 for Los Angeles County, suspended Code of Civil Procedure section 1161, paragraph 3, to the extent it creates an unlawful-detainer action for breach of a lease condition based on occupancy by people displaced from their primary residence by the emergency. It ran until March 8, 2025, or until terminated earlier. A second paragraph barred termination notices on that ground, except a notice issued at the direction of a fire marshal or other government official.

When it is not suspended, paragraph 3 lets a landlord serve a three-day written notice, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays, requiring the tenant to perform the covenant or give up possession. Within those days the tenant may perform and so save the lease from forfeiture, though the statute says no such notice is needed if the breach cannot afterward be performed. Your state’s rules and your own notice may differ, and a lawyer licensed there is the one to ask.

The order says it creates no rights enforceable against the State or any other person. It also does not contain the words pet or animal. The governor’s press release about it is headlined “Governor Newsom bans evictions based on hosting fire survivors”, and it does not contain them either. California protected hosting people. Washington protected people and their pets, and the difference matters.

California’s former statute: written approval, then repeal

Assembly Bill 1188 (2019) added Civil Code section 1942.8, which said that a tenant may, with “the written approval of the owner or landlord”, temporarily permit a person at risk of homelessness to occupy the unit, regardless of the lease terms. It let the landlord adjust the rent while that person lived there, with the terms agreed in writing. It did not apply if the added person would exceed occupancy limits or building standards, or to federal Section 8 or other federally funded or assisted low-income housing. It repealed itself on January 1, 2024, and does not contain the words pet or animal.

It did not override the lease. It created a route through the lease, and the toll was the landlord’s written approval, which is the same instrument this page tells you to get. It also shows that a yes can come with a price attached, which is why item five on the request list exists. Civil Code section 1942.8 is no longer a hosting statute: the number was reused, and the current section is an internet service provider bulk-billing statute added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 506 (AB 1414), effective January 1, 2026. Cite AB 1188 for the old provision.

What to take from the three

Three instruments addressed a tenant who takes in a displaced person over a lease clause, and one named animals. Do not assume a protection announced for hosting people covers the animals that come with them.

• Do not plan around a protection. Each was bounded by time, and most by place too. Each printed an end date: March 8, 2025, January 1, 2024, and September 30, 2026.
• In a real declared emergency, read the primary source. Your governor’s office publishes proclamations or executive orders with their dates. Read the document, not the coverage.
• Ask the emergency question in advance anyway. It costs one sentence in an email, and you will know the answer before it matters.

The Handoff Sheet: What to Fill In Before the Owner Leaves

Everything above is about getting to a yes. The next few minutes matter too, when the owner is in your driveway with a leash and a carrier and a lot on their mind. Write things down anyway. This sheet is between you and the owner, and it is separate from the request you sent your landlord.

The list is this site’s own suggestion, because no source publishes these fields together. The last item comes from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Pets and disasters page, which speaks to the owner.

1. Species, vaccination status and bite history. Write the species, the breed if known, and every vaccination the owner can name. Then ask directly whether the animal has ever bitten a person or another animal. An owner in a hurry often will not volunteer it, and a host who learns about a bite after an incident has lost the choice they had at the curb.
2. Medications, with the prescribing vet’s direct number. A bag of unlabeled pills is not a medication list. Write the drug name and the instructions exactly as the owner’s veterinarian gave them, plus the name and direct phone number of that veterinarian, not the clinic’s general line. The owner may be unreachable, and the prescriber’s number does not depend on the owner picking up. If you are unsure about a medication, call that veterinarian.
3. A written spending limit and who reimburses it. Agree on a limit for a vet visit, food or a replacement leash, and write it down. This page prints no figure, because any number would be wrong for someone’s situation. An unstated number is where a small favor becomes a resented one.
4. The microchip number, scanned and confirmed. Write the number a scanner returns, not the number the owner remembers. An owner under stress can misremember it, and a scanner can fail to read a working chip.
5. A return date. Use a range, not the word temporary. An undated arrangement has no moment at which either side is expected to say anything.
6. A named third party. Ask for someone who is not displaced and whom the owner trusts, to call if the owner has not answered by the return date.
7. Written authorization for emergency veterinary care. The AVMA’s Pets and disasters page says to “Consider including a signed veterinary medical treatment authorization with your evacuation kit.” It also says to give a friend or neighbor “a letter signed by you that will release them from responsibility if a pet is injured during an evacuation”. Both are addressed to the owner, so a host who does not ask at the curb will not have them. Put the spending limit and reimbursement terms on the same paper.

A signed page does not settle what a clinic will do. Whether a practice may act on an owner’s written authorization presented by someone else runs through each state’s veterinary practice act and the practice’s own policy. Our page on being the pet sitter when the evacuation order comes works through two states’ acts. If the animal needs care while you wait, call a veterinarian, not your landlord, and ask what the practice needs from the owner before it can treat. If you have the owner’s written authorization, say so on that call.

If the Owner Does Not Come Back

An owner who misses the return date and stops answering is where a generous arrangement can go quietly wrong. This page cannot tell you your legal position, and two Florida statutes show why the question is hard.

• Section 705.19, the abandonment-of-animals provision, opens with animals placed in the custody of “a licensed veterinarian or bona fide boarding kennel”. A spare bedroom is neither. On its face, the ten-day written-notice procedure it sets out is not one a private host runs. That is our reading of the statute’s words, and Florida is one state. Our post-disaster rental housing page reads the section in full for the boarding-facility situation it addresses.
• Section 713.65, a lien statute, grants a lien in favor of “all persons feeding or caring for the horse or other animal of another”, and its text is not limited to boarding facilities or veterinarians. This page does not say the statute reaches a private host, and does not say it does not. Get the spending limit and reimbursement terms in writing regardless.

Both are questions for a lawyer licensed in your state. In the meantime:

• Write down the date the animal arrived, who brought it and every attempt to reach the owner, with dates.
• Use the backup contact and the prescribing vet’s number from the handoff sheet. If you did not collect them, ask the owner in writing for a second contact who is not displaced and the name of their veterinarian, since a displaced owner may be unreachable for reasons that have nothing to do with walking away.
• Call your local animal services agency or humane society and ask what they advise in your county.

After the Yes

The animals. Two households’ animals in one house is its own problem. Our guide to evacuating to family who already have pets covers separation, the vaccination conversation, the resident animal’s territory and an exit trigger. Read it before anyone arrives.

The count. Some cities and counties cap the number of animals at one address, independent of your lease. Our page on what to do when your county has no pet-friendly shelter quotes several cities’ ordinances doing that and gives a worksheet for computing headroom. The number that matters is the lowest of the legal cap minus your own animals, the separable rooms your visitors need, and what your lease allows.

When the Answer Is No

A no is an outcome to plan for, not a failure.

• Tell the household counting on you, by name and by date. Their list has your address on it, and a list with four confirmed destinations survives losing one.
• Ask for the smaller version first. A shorter stay with a written end date is a smaller ask than an open-ended one. The garage, a fenced yard, one crated animal in one room or a vehicle parked on your property are different questions from a houseguest arrangement. Your lease may not permit any of them, so put them in the same written message and get the answer in writing.
• Point them to other options. Hotel pet policies during an evacuation covers booking ahead. Choosing and timing emergency boarding compares a clinic, a commercial kennel and a friend’s house. When your county has no pet-friendly shelter builds the whole destination list. 2-1-1 is the general route into local human-services referral.

If a notice has already been served on you, stop reading web pages. The answer turns on your lease, your state, your jurisdiction’s procedure and dates that start running at once. Start with the Legal Services Corporation’s locator at lsc.gov, which finds LSC-funded legal aid near you. Legal aid serves low-income clients and can be swamped for months after a disaster, so a household over the income line may be turned away. LawHelp.org, which LSC’s page points to and Pro Bono Net maintains, publishes state-by-state self-help information. Your state bar’s website may list a lawyer referral service, and your county courthouse’s website may list a self-help center, if yours run one. HUD’s fair housing line is not the route for an ordinary no-pets clause. The exception is the assistance-animal question above.

Your Checklist

Do the first five on a quiet afternoon. The rest are for the day it matters.

• Find your lease and read the occupancy or guest clause and the pet clause next to each other. Check whether the pet clause says “your pets” or something broader such as animals of any kind in the unit.
• Find out who is authorized to say yes. In a condominium, co-op or homeowners association building, it may not be the person who signed your lease.
• Send one written message covering the six items: species and count, start and end dates, whether a declared emergency changes the answer, who authorizes it, what follows from a yes, and the reply in writing. Do not accept the word temporary without dates attached.
• Look up whether your city or county caps animals at one address.
• File the written reply with your lease, and tell the household counting on you what the answer was, either way.
• If the animal is a service or support animal, ask that as a separate question.
• Once the answer is yes, fill in the handoff sheet with the owner.
• During an actual declared emergency, read your governor’s current proclamation, not the press release, and check its end date against today’s date.
• If the answer is no, ask for the smaller version and get that answer in writing.
• If a notice is served on you, contact legal aid through the LSC locator or a lawyer licensed in your state.
• If an animal is left with you past the agreed date, record the arrival date and every contact attempt, ask for a second contact, and call local animal services or the humane society.

Where to Go Next

This page is one spoke of our pet emergency playbooks hub.

• You are the host and the animals are on their way: evacuating to family who already have pets and multi-pet emergency planning.
• You are the one who has to leave: when your county has no pet-friendly shelter, hotel pet policies during an evacuation and choosing and timing emergency boarding.
• You rent and the problem is your own animals: pet evacuation planning for apartment renters and a pet emergency kit for renters.
• A disaster has already cost you your housing: post-disaster rental housing with pets covers breed and weight rules, the Fair Housing Act analysis and the alternatives before surrender.

The step that pays off most takes ten minutes: open your lease, find the occupancy clause and the pet clause, and send one email with the six questions above.