Further Guidance Topics

By October 2004, a provider of goods and services to the public will be obliged to take steps to change physical features within a premises for disabled people.

This will include removing, altering, or providing alternatives that would enable disabled people to make use of the service. The responsibility and duties in the DDA can rest on either a landlord or a tenant.

If a tenant, either in a single let building, or a multi-let building, provides a service to the public, the duties fall on the tenant.

If a landlord provides a service to the public, then they are responsible for any common parts of the building, whether it is a multi-occupied office building, or a shopping centre. However, it is not clear who is responsible for the common parts in the case where the public only visit the building at the invitation of the tenant.

The responsibility for compliance lies with the tenant, who, as a service provider, owes a duty to disabled people not to discriminate against them. The tenant is not under a statutory requirement to the landlord for making adjustments to the premises.

It is unlikely that the landlord would be able to require a tenant to undertake works to comply with its duties under the DDA, during, or as part of a dilapidations requirement at the end of the lease.