The Legal Reasons - Access
Access to your building
The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) says that service providers should make reasonable adjustments to physical features that prevent access by disabled people. These features include steps and doors, parking areas, building entrances, toilet facilities and service counters.
Your duty is not just to put a ramp at the front entrance of your building (although that may be a useful thing to do) but to look at all aspects of your services and consider what changes you can make to the full range of physical features including lighting and signage.
You can get assistance with assessing the accessibility of your property for disabled people from access panels (groups of disabled people) or from access consultants.
Access to information
The DDA also requires that the information you provide should be accessible to disabled people. Again this is a reasonable duty; taking into account the difference between a large local authority and a small property letting agency.
The duties relate to both written and electronic information and therefore include your property schedules, papers and websites.
A small estate agent reviews the suitability of its sales literature for clients who
are partially sighted or blind.
Because of the nature of the service it provides and the size of its business, the estate agent concludes that it is not practicable to make particulars of houses for sale available in braille. However, the estate agent does increase the print size and redesign the appearance of its written sales particulars as well as putting the information on audio tape on request. These are likely to be reasonable steps for the estate agent to have to taken.
From the DRC Code of Practice: Rights of Access- Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises
Because of the nature of the service it provides and the size of its business, the estate agent concludes that it is not practicable to make particulars of houses for sale available in braille. However, the estate agent does increase the print size and redesign the appearance of its written sales particulars as well as putting the information on audio tape on request. These are likely to be reasonable steps for the estate agent to have to taken.
From the DRC Code of Practice: Rights of Access- Goods, Facilities, Services and Premises
