Scope: England and Wales — the Equality Act 2010 applies across both. Disabled Facilities Grants operate in both with different administration. Verified against the legislation on 14 August 2026.
Most decisions a landlord makes are housing decisions, and get argued about in housing terms. This one is different: refusing a disabled tenant a reasonable adjustment is discrimination, and it is dealt with as discrimination — a different claim, in a different forum, with damages that include injury to feelings.
The duty, in outline
Under the Equality Act 2010 a landlord must make reasonable adjustments for a disabled tenant. In a letting context that runs to three things:
- Changing a provision, criterion or practice — for instance a blanket "no pets" rule applied to an assistance dog, or a rule about where bins are stored.
- Providing an auxiliary aid — typically something small and removable.
- Not unreasonably refusing consent to a physical alteration the tenant wants to make.
What the duty does not generally do in the private rented sector is require the landlord to make and pay for structural alterations themselves. The usual shape is: the tenant asks, funding comes from elsewhere, and the landlord must not unreasonably refuse.
Assistance dogs are the clearest case
A "no pets" clause applied to an assistance dog is the single most common failure. An assistance dog is not a pet in this context; refusing one on a blanket policy is very likely discrimination.
Note this sits alongside, not inside, the pet request right. That right requires you to consider a request and refuse only reasonably; the Equality Act duty is stronger and independent. A lease prohibition that would be a reasonable ground to refuse an ordinary pet is a much weaker answer here, and worth taking advice on rather than assuming.
Who pays
Usually not you. The Disabled Facilities Grant is the main route: a council grant for adaptations, means-tested for the applicant, and available to private tenants. The tenant applies; the council assesses; the landlord's consent is normally required.
That consent is the point at which a landlord's decision becomes legally significant. Withholding it unreasonably is where the discrimination risk sits.
Reasonable questions you can ask
Permitting an adaptation does not mean permitting anything at all. It is reasonable to ask about:
- Scope — exactly what is being altered, and by whom.
- Competence — qualified contractors, and any building regulations or planning consent needed.
- Reinstatement — whether the work is to be removed at the end, and who pays.
- Insurance — and telling your own insurer, since undisclosed alterations are a common ground for declining a claim.
- Consents you do not control — a leaseholder landlord may need the freeholder's agreement, which is a real constraint rather than an excuse.
Record the request and your response in writing, with reasons. See record keeping — in a discrimination claim the contemporaneous note of why you decided as you did is the evidence.
At the end of the tenancy
Whether adaptations are reinstated should be agreed before the work happens, in writing. Two traps:
- Deducting reinstatement costs from the deposit when reinstatement was never agreed. That will not survive adjudication.
- Treating an adaptation as damage. A grab rail fitted with consent is not a deductible deduction.
Many adaptations improve the property or widen its market. Some do not, and that is a legitimate thing to discuss at the consent stage rather than at the check-out.
Where the duty stops
Reasonableness is the limit, and it is fact-specific: the size of the alteration, its cost, its effect on the property, and whether consents can be obtained all count. A landlord who takes advice, asks proper questions and gives written reasons is in a very different position from one who says no.
Blanket policies are the danger. "We never allow alterations" is exactly the kind of provision the duty is designed to reach.
Run the free compliance check for the property’s other duties.