Reasonable adjustments support guide
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About rights and reasonable adjustments
Your rights
Social housing landlords must follow laws that protect your rights, such as:
- the Equality Act
- the Care Act
- the Human Rights Act
Our Spotlight report on attitudes, respect, and rights considers resident experiences of, and landlord’s approaches to upholding resident’s rights. The report sets out examples of where things are managed well and where they can go wrong.
Meeting the minimum legal standard is not enough, landlords should provide services that truly meet residents’ needs. You should get the support you need, without delays or interruptions.
Reasonable adjustments
Under the Equality Act 2010 public sector organisations must make changes in how they provide services to ensure that services are accessible to disabled people as well as everybody else.
Reasonable adjustments can mean:
- alterations to buildings by providing lifts, wide doors, ramps and tactile signage
- changes to the way it communicates with you
- changes to policies, procedures and staff training to ensure that services work equally well for people with disabilities
Reporting an issue to your landlord
Contact your landlord to request a change to the way it communicates to you or if you need a change to your home. You should:
- ask your landlord about its reasonable adjustment policy
- let the landlord know if you need support
- explain what adjustment you need and why
How landlords should manage your reports
Your landlord should have a published policy that explains how they will respond. This could include:
- consider your needs when providing services, such as offering non-digital communication or making home adaptations
- provide you with choices, information, and communication that’s appropriate to you
- making changes or modifications to your home to make it easier for you to live there with your disability
- be trained on how to deal with any additional needs you may have to give you confidence in approaching them
For example, people with learning disabilities may require:
- clear, simple and possibly repeated explanations of what’s happening and of treatments
- help with appointments
More information about a what we would expect the landlord to consider is available here.
Reasonable adjustments: a legal duty - GOV.UK
Find out more about how landlords should respond to reasonable adjustment reports.
Making a complaint about your landlord
Making a request for a reasonable adjustment is not the same as making a complaint. If you have made a request to your landlord for a reasonable adjustment and you do not think it has responded appropriately, you can make a complaint.
A complaint might be about:
- the landlord refuses or fails to provide reasonable adjustments to the way it provides a service to you
- failing to respond to your request
- it not providing an explanation for the rationale behind the decision on your request
- the landlord agreeing to make an adjustment and not adhering to it
- the time it took the landlord to respond to a request you have made to it
- any action it should not have done, or you are unhappy with – for example, not referring you for an assessment for adaptations to your home
To do this, you must use the landlord's formal complaint procedure.
Landlords' response to complaints
Your landlord must reply to a complaint in line with its complaint procedure. Our Complaint Handling Code sets out the timescales a landlord must respond to a complaint:
Stage 1:
- acknowledge the complaint within 5 working days of it being received
- respond, in writing, within 10 working days of the date the complaint was acknowledged
Stage 2:
- acknowledge a request to escalate the complaint within 5 working days of it being received
- respond, in writing, within 20 working days of the escalation request being acknowledged
Bring your complaint to us for investigation
You can bring a complaint to us for investigation if your landlord does not resolve your issues through their complaint procedure.
Tell us:
- what went wrong
- what your landlord should do to put things right
We need your landlord's stage 2 response before we can help. This is their final answer to your complaint.
You can refer your complaint to us within 12 months of your landlord's stage 2 response. We’re unlikely to investigate complaints referred after this deadline unless there are good reasons for the delay.
Help if your landlord does not reply to your complaint
We can help you get a response from your landlord if they do not follow their complaint procedure or our Complaint Handling Code.
Send us a copy of the complaint to your landlord. This helps us understand if your landlord follows its complaint procedure.
The easiest way to do this is by using our helpful online form. The form will ask you about your complaint and you can upload supporting evidence.
You may also find these useful
Attitudes, respect, and rights page
Poor communication is often the root cause of housing complaints, eroding trust and leading to escalating issues.
Discover guidance, spotlight reports, and training options to help you understand this key topic.
Attitudes, respect, and right landlord expectations
Landlords can use this guidance to strengthen the service you provide to residents, especially those with vulnerabilities.
It sets out the standards you should follow and highlights the culture, vision, and values that support good practice.