There has been some bewilderment amongst the property world as to the impact that the Disability Discrimination may have on both owners and occupiers. In particular, landlords have been concerned that they will inevitably have to alter premises to accommodate tenants with disabilities. A recent case has shown that the Act may not be as draconian as first feared.

A disabled tenant sought the consent of her landlord to the installation of a stairlift to the communal staircase to reach the third floor of the block of flats in which she lived, to ease her access to and from her flat. The landlord refused and the tenant claimed that the refusal constituted discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 which makes it unlawful to discriminate against a disabled person occupying premises in the way that benefits or facilities are permitted to be used.

The Court of Appeal held that the 1995 Act did not impose a duty on a landlord to make or allow reasonable adjustments to take account of the needs of the disabled tenants. The starting point for the court was to establish why the landlord had refused consent and to see whether it related to the tenant’s disability. It was clear here that all tenants would have been refused permission to add a stairlift to communal stairs regardless of any disability. The landlord did not refuse consent because the tenant was disabled. It had various objections and none were to do with the tenant’s disability. The managers of premises are not under any positive obligation to their tenants to make adjustments or allow tenants to adjust common parts so as to make them more suitable for disabled people.

The Disability Discrimination legislation requires owners and occupiers of property to make their premises "DDA" compliant. As this case shows, there is no obligation to make physical adjustments for tenants. If the tenant had been treated in the same way as one with no disability, there would be no discrimination according to the DDA legislation.

Obviously there are additional obligations imposed on a landlord where a landlord is a "service provider" as defined by the 1995 Act and this may lead to a landlord being required to undertake physical alterations. These are, however, entirely separate to the issue being considered by the Court of Appeal.

The 1995 Act was amended most recently by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. This makes it unlawful for landlords and others to discriminate against disabled people in the disposal or management of premises and imposes duties on landlords and managing agents of let premises not to treat them less favourably. It assists tenants in making alterations to their own premises but would not have helped the tenant here to alter communal facilities.

Further reading: Richmond Court (Swansea) Limited v Williams [2006] EWCA Civ 1719, 14 December 2006

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The original publication date for this article was 05/01/2007.