Housing and Disability

Housing and Disability

The disastrous Britton Price lift contract on our estate, Queen Adelaide Court, got us appreciating the particular problems of the disabled.

Disability is not just about people in wheelchairs or people with a white stick and a guide dog.

Many of us suffer disabling conditions some of us are born with disability others have disability thrust upon us.

The months of having no lifts followed by months of irregular lift service has particularly focused our attention on to the difficulties that arose for the significant minority of our residents who suffer from a disabling condition such as chronic heart failure, arthritis,
angina,, thrombosis etc.

At the height of our concerns Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act became law.

This part dealt with access to suppliers of goods and services, which meant providing access to shops, cinemas, sports facilities, places to eat, in fact almost any facility providing goods or a service with one exception LANDLORDS.

The woolly wording of the DDA stated that landlords were exempt unless it could be proved that they were also service providers. But of course they are service providers and as such should be required to comply with the legislation.

Landlords must be service providers they issue service charge demands do they not.
The courts agree with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT ) that landlords are covered by the definition of suppliers of goods or services for the purpose of complying with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. See R v Newham LBC ( 2004 8EG 136)

It is either the case that landlords are service providers or else they are actively defrauding tenants by demanding payment for something they do not provide.

It is untenable that disabled persons should be excluded by landlords not only from obtaining access to appropriate accommodation but also from visiting friends and family.

It is untenable that legislation should discriminate against the disabled in this way, possibly breaching Article 14 of the Human Rights Act.

Currently Social landlords are spending millions of pounds refurbishing their housing stock in order to comply with the so called Decent Homes Standard.