Some California Apartment owners and managers may encounter erroneous ideas that the Americans With Disabilities Act does not apply in any manner to Apartment Buildings or erroneous ideas that the ADA applies to some aspects of Apartment ownership when it does not. In many cases, these erroneous ideas occur because of a misunderstanding of ADA requirements. There are several common misunderstandings regarding ADA requirements and apartments.
One misconception is that apartments are required to have ADA-compliant units. This is often not the case. The ADA generally applies to public buildings. This includes, for example, hotels, convention centers and restaurants. It also covers any parking spaces associated with the apartment buildings to the extent spaces are used by would-be applicants who need to go to the sales/rental office or manager’s office to obtain a rental application, but usually not the apartments themselves.
On the other hand, the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, and other acts and regulations may require owners to consider reasonable accommodation requests and do so in a timely manner. Setting up a quick meeting to obtain all the particulars is important to meet the timeliness requirement. A reasonable accommodation that the tenant is willing to pay for and restore after they leave, will often be considered something the owner should allow unless there are other reasonable reasons not to. The Apartment owner and managers should always check with an ADA attorney who understands these issues to avoid ADA Apartment lawsuits.