Disability Housing Discrimination: What private landlords must avoid

Most private landlords rent out their properties ethically, ensuring that tenants are taken care of and their rights are accommodated. Oftentimes, claims regarding disability housing discrimination come from simple misunderstandings of the law rather than malice. But when you aren’t aware of what is expected of you as a landlord, this can result in severe financial and legal consequences. 

The premise of ensuring disability housing discrimination is prevented is the Equality Act 2010. (gov.uk) It states that any discrimination against disabled applicants is unlawful. So, in order to protect your property business, you’ll need to ensure you know the risks associated with tenant screening and managing active tenancies. 

Tenant Screening and the Risk of Unlawful Rejection

One of the main areas that brings up disability housing discrimination is before the tenancy is signed. It’s crucial that you’re extremely careful as a landlord about the criteria you use in order to vet a potential tenant. 

Naturally, if you refuse to let your property to an applicant because they have a disability (either physical or mental), this becomes a direct breach of the Equality Act 2010. You also need to be careful because discrimination can also take place indirectly through the type of questions you ask during the tenancy screening process. 

For example, when you ask probing questions about an applicant’s medical history, the nature of their disability, or any care requirements they have during the screening process, this can cause legal issues for you, especially if you choose not to accept the applicant. 

It is best practice to ensure your tenant screening process is objective by focusing on references, credit checks and the applicant’s ability to meet their financial responsibilities. 

To ensure your tenancy screening process is objective, review our detailed guide on the specific questions landlords cannot ask during screening. If you do need to turn down an applicant based on legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons (such as a failed credit check), ensure you follow the legal framework outlined in our article on how to reject a tenant safely.

Disability Housing Discrimination and Assistance Animals 

The law surrounding pets treats assistance and support animals entirely differently. Landlords aren’t allowed to put a blanket ban over having pets in rental properties any longer. Assistance and support animals aren’t generally considered pets, though, but are rather seen as auxiliary aids. This means that they enable people with disabilities to live independently. 

Also, you won’t be able to charge higher deposits or ‘pet premium’ rent for an assistance animal. So, in order to be able to navigate this sensitive area properly, without breaching statutory rules, make sure you read our comprehensive guide on support animals and renting.

Mishandling Reasonable Adjustments

Disabled tenants and applicants have the legal right to request reasonable adjustments to ensure that they aren’t at a disadvantage compared to tenants without disabilities. So, as a landlord, it’s imperative to know what this duty entails. 

How Landlords Can Provide Reasonable Adjustments

To ensure there is no landlord discrimination against disabled tenants. This means that you need to look at changing policies, practices, tenancy terms or communication methods. For example, you might need to look at the following: 

• Provide your tenant with an accessible digital version of the tenancy agreement. 
• Alter a current policy, for example, changing the date rent is collected to align with the date your tenant receives their disability benefit payments. 
• Provide different ways of being able to communicate notices. 

What You Are Not Required to Do

Generally, reasonable adjustments made in housing won’t require landlords to remove or alter any physical features of the property or to make modifications to the structural common parts of a residential building, for example, installing a stairlift in a communal hallway. 

This legal duty, however, only applies once you, as the landlord, actually know the specifics of the adjustments being requested. This means that you’ll need to be on top of your record-keeping. So, if a tenant requests reasonable adjustments, you need to ensure that you document it immediately. Make sure that you include your response in your documentation, too. 

Read our guide on a landlord’s obligation to disabled tenants for more information on structural changes, funding grants and overall landlord responsibilities. 

Disability Protection  and the 2026 Rental Discrimination Rules

The Renter’s Rights Act 2025 has been implemented since May 2026. These rules prohibit landlords from putting a blanket ban against families with children or on people who receive housing benefits. Historically, this would have been referred to as ‘No DSS’ policies. (gov.uk)

As a landlord, it’s important to be able to distinguish the difference between the two frameworks and what they target. Because the Renters’ Rights Act has been rife within the rental sector, it can easily be confused with disability protections. It’s important, however, to recognise that these two sets of regulations target separate things: 

• The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 specifically targets blanket exclusions on children and benefits in England.
• The Equality Act 2010, however, targets landlord discrimination against disabled tenants. This is across the whole of the UK. 

So, even if a disabled applicant receives a disability benefit and uses this to pay rent, you’ll be obligated to evaluate them fairly under both sets of regulations. 

Protecting Your Business Through Compliance

It’s so important to be flexible and to take a more individualised approach to tenants with disabilities so that you don’t become guilty of disability housing discrimination as a landlord. By keeping your screening questions transparent and constructively engaging with tenant requests for reasonable adjustments, you’ll be able to foster good relationships with your tenants while still being able to protect your rental property. 

Are you looking for landlord insurance to help protect your rental property? Be sure to get in touch with our team of specialists for a quote today on 01788 818 670, or you can visit our advice centre for more information on how to manage your rental property.