Myself and my disabled wife (registered) live in a housing association one bedroom flat.

My wife suffers with spinal degeneration and needs a bedroom for herself because she in pain in during the nighttime when trying to sleep.

We have spoken to our doctor who was very supportive and wrote a letter to the housing association stating that living in our current tenancy is no good for my wife, there is also a social problem with a new neighbor who is affecting my wife's mental state of health which was also mentioned in the supporting letter.

We contacted the housing association and requested that we wished to find alternative accommodation.

The housing association arranged for an occupational therapist visit and her report was way over the top,

her recommendations was for a gradual sloped access with hand rails both sides of the pathway,

my wife uses a walking stick and does not use handrails and there is no problem at our current property without hand rails.

A wet room was also one of the recommendations in case my wife's condition got worse over the years,

again she is coping fine with our current bathroom with a walk in shower.

We were informed that we could only apply to be re-housed with a property with all of these adaptions in place.

We thought that this would be OK until we found that the housing association has very little stock of these type properties and we may have to wait years for one to come available.

We asked if we could apply for a general needs property instead because there are more of these type properties in stock and if necessary we would carry out any minor adaptions with the help of social services at our own cost.

We would not be interested in any properties with difficult access like lot of steps etc or any major mobility issues..

Our request was turned down by the housing association and they were adamant that we can only apply for a disabled property,

which is stupid because we are living in a non-disabled property and we coping fine except for the lack of the extra bedroom.

I am wondering if the housing association can turn our request to be re-housed down in a general needs property?

The Equality Act 2010 states that the landlord has a duty to make reasonable adjustments if required.

I am no expert in this law, anyone able to advise on this act?

Your complaint seems to be that the HA has taken (& wishes to act on) expert advice.

If so, the HA is open to complaints whatever they do:

If they

a) don't take advice,

b) take advice and act on it,

c) take advice and don't act on it.

It seems they are "damned if they do, damned if they don't"!

Hi jazztheman

I can appreciate where you are coming from having some years ago to my own medical condition having to apply to move properties with my HA for Medical Reasons.

What you need to be fully aware of is most HA in the UK only have a set amount of Disabled Adapted Properties and that they have an Allocations Policy in place that sets out the process and yes it can take some time for a suitable property to be available.

As you wish to move for Medical Reason the big thing here is medical evidence that the move is actually required for that medical need generally yes a HA will look at a doctors/gp recommendation but it is not a hospital consultant.

If you are under a hospital consultants speak to them tell them the issue be open they are there to help and if they could do for your HA (if you are each under different hospital consultants then seperatly ask each more evidence the better)

Now even if you have these letters the HA may play it does not say you need this or that so you simply inform your consultant that done the letter and if they could amend and re send to HA.

Write to the HA and ask them for a copy of:

1. Customer Care Policy.

2. Allocations Policy.

3. Complaints Policy.

(ensure to get free proof of posting from the post office and to keep a good paper trail)

What you need to do if you disagree with there decision is to follow the HA Complaints Procedure as you must fully exhaust this first before you can proceed to the Housing Ombudsman.

The best advice is if either of you are at present under a hospital consultant is to explain the issue to them and if they could do a letter make them aware of the problem.

You also need to be aware that even if they upgrade you status for housing allocation it may still take some time before a suitable property is available to the HA stock of properties so you need to be aware of this as well as it took me some years before a suitable property became available and in the meantime I had to do with different adaption at my old property.

The HA provided some one (Occ Health?) to recommend alterations, which HA seem willing to provide

I don't know if you can use the Disablity Act to force them to provide another 'general needs' property, other than what you already rent.

They seem willing to provide a disabled property, but not prob within your localty.

Hi jazztheman

 

I can appreciate where you are coming from having some years ago to my own medical condition having to apply to move properties with my HA for Medical Reasons.

 

What you need to be fully aware of is most HA in the UK only have a set amount of Disabled Adapted Properties and that they have an Allocations Policy in place that sets out the process and yes it can take some time for a suitable property to be available.

 

As you wish to move for Medical Reason the big thing here is medical evidence that the move is actually required for that medical need generally yes a HA will look at a doctors/gp recommendation but it is not a hospital consultant.

 

If you are under a hospital consultants speak to them tell them the issue be open they are there to help and if they could do for your HA (if you are each under different hospital consultants then seperatly ask each more evidence the better)

 

Now even if you have these letters the HA may play it does not say you need this or that so you simply inform your consultant that done the letter and if they could amend and re send to HA.

 

Write to the HA and ask them for a copy of:

 

1. Customer Care Policy.

2. Allocations Policy.

3. Complaints Policy.

 

(ensure to get free proof of posting from the post office and to keep a good paper trail)

 

What you need to do if you disagree with there decision is to follow the HA Complaints Procedure as you must fully exhaust this first before you can proceed to the Housing Ombudsman.

 

The best advice is if either of you are at present under a hospital consultant is to explain the issue to them and if they could do a letter make them aware of the problem.

 

You also need to be aware that even if they upgrade you status for housing allocation it may still take some time before a suitable property is available to the HA stock of properties so you need to be aware of this as well as it took me some years before a suitable property became available and in the meantime I had to do with different adaption at my old property.

Thank you for your information.

The problem is not the evidence of my wife's health condition. HA have recognised that there is a sufficient evidence for the need to move under medical grounds and they have classified the move to be under the urgent category. However, there are very limited if any disabled properties available, and then there may be a waiting list for other disabled tenants who are also under the urgent category.

There are a much higher numbers of General Needs properties with the same HA and are suitable but may need minor adaptions like grab rails etc, unfortunately the HA are adamant that General Needs properties are not available for people with disabilities due to the lack of adaptions, which is why I am questioning the Equality Act 2010 which indicates that landlords cannot refuse the installation of minor adaptions for the disabled. Whether this act applies moving to a potential property I do not know? But it does seem like discrimination against the disabled.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Your complaining because the HA are taking onboard all of you and your wife's needs and future needs but does not have a suitable property.

Minor modifications are allowed but from reading in-between the lines it sounds like a property would need much more than minor modifications

My complaint or gripe with the HA is that the major adaptions that they are recommending are unnecessary and will not be used.

We were only informed of the outcome of the HA OT report a few weeks later, the problem now is that we can only apply to be re-housed in disabled properties with major adaptions and there are none available or a very long wait.

The HA have recognised that we need to be re-housed urgently, unfortunately by putting us into the severely disabled category will only result in a very long wait and therefore not urgent.

The OT has to consider the future of your wife's condition when writing her report.

As she has a deteriorating condition there is no guarantee when she might need the recommended adaptations but on the balance of probabilities she will.

If the housing association offer to act on the recommendations of the OT in your current property, or has offered for you to be rehoused in a suitable property then they could argue that they are making reasonable adjustments as outlined in the Equality Act 2010.

It would be great if jazztheman could provide us with an update on how this issue is progressing.

I didn’t notice that this was posted in 2017. Lesson learnt!

But totally agree, it would be interesting to know how they got on

It would be great if jazztheman could provide us with an update on how this issue is progressing.

As feared we are still living in the same property, due to the lack of vacant disabled properties.

Hi

Thanks for the update, sadly that does happen if there is no disabled properties available you are placed on a waiting list.

Have you tried speaking to your hospital consultant to do a letter as I mentioned in post#3 there letter have more weight even if it moves you up that disabled properties list.

I went through similar some years ago and it took some yrs and it ended up with the hospital surgeon threatening my HA as they were now questioning his professional standards and qualifications, was amazing how fast things changed when I handed them that letter.

If you ask the Hospital Consultant to do a letter for you need to be specific in what you need as it has to be in there letter i.e. 2 bedroom, Ground Floor, Any adaptions i.e. walkin shower, ramps, wheelchair access etc.

There is no issue proving that my wife's disability justifies the need to be re-housed. The housing association have also acknowledged that we need to be re-housed and have classified our application to be urgent.

We now find ourselves in the position that there is little chance of us being re-housed due to the lack of disabled housing stock.