The Equality Act 2010
While loading up content for my new Landlord Law site, I realised that I may have to change most of what I have about discrimination due to the new Equality Act, which comes into force on 1 October.
I had a quick look at the Equality and Human Rights Commission web-site but all the stuff there seems to be fairly general and I couldn’t find anything specific about housing matters (not that I had enough time to do a thorough check).
For example what about the House of Lords decision in the Malcolm case ? Looking back at some old course notes, I see that one of the intentions of the Act apparently, was to reverse Malcolm.
Will this then mean that landlords (private sector landlords that is) who inadvertently take in a tenant who is suffering from a mental illness, will be unable to evict them for rent arrears, if the reason for the rent arrears is that the tenant’s mental condition means he is incapable of managing his money (remember this case here)?
Then there was that 2006 case about the lady who wanted a stair lift installed (Richard Court (Swansea) Ltd v. Williams). The court decided that the landlords did not have to provide it – would that change also?
If anyone has any ideas, views, suggestions, and (in particular) inside information, please leave a comment.
(Photo by David Michael Morris)
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Will the Malcolm court of appeal decision be revived? No.
The equality bill addresses the Lords decision in Malcolm only to the extent that that decision effectively demolished ‘disability related discrimination’, leaving only ‘direct discrimination’. It introduces ‘discrimination arising from disability’ instead, alongside direct and indirect discrimination. The general NL view is that there is nothing in there that would replicate the Malcolm situation. The key clause used to read – and I think still does:
“(1) A person (A) discriminates against a disabled person (B) if
(a) A treats B in a particular way,
(b) because of B’s disability, the treatment amounts to a detriment, and
(c) A cannot show that the treatment is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.”
The old DDA s.24(1) read (in part)
(a) for a reason which relates to the disabled person’s disability, he treats him less favourably than he treats or would treat others to whom that reason does not or would not apply;
There is a significant difference between ‘because of B’s disability the treatment amounts to a detriment’ and ‘for a reason which relates to B’s disability… etc’.
A possession for rent arrears would be very hard to argue as a detriment to B, ‘because of B’s disability’. It would be a detriment to anyone. And in any event, proportionate means would probably apply.
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