Author: Guy Harris, AccessiblePRS
The UK has a growing accessible housing crisis. In a fast-paced environment. There is a lack of supply, poor processes and a negative approach around wheelchair users and people with accessible housing needs. Overcoming the barriers hasn’t felt possible for property professionals, even where they’ve wanted to, because it’s a systemic challenge that needs everyone to work to a cohesive and implementable plan.
The great news is that we can unpick this chronic lack, by harnessing of all the rapid and continuous changes in the sector. Appropriate insight at the table means asking helpful and contextualised questions. From the outset all the way through to implementation. It is logical to ensure that new systems and processes have inclusion and equality at their heart.
When fully adopted, UPRNs and The Material Information Updates (Nov-2023) will be impactful in addressing the need for data collection and recalling by professionals and searchers alike. With the UK’s chronic shortage of accessible housing supply and the growing and unmet demand, UPRNs offer a way to level search processes and find existing properties that are wheelchair accessible, already have property attributes that could meet some accessible housing needs, or have future accessibility designed into the existing adaptable plans and fit out.
It can also become a route for policy, strategists and investment enterprises to understand the data on property accessibility attributes at a deeply granular level and so be of use to housing allocations and new build strategies nationally and across local authorities.
When Property Logs create the fields for collecting and filtering housing with accessibility property attributes, it will transform the search process and highlight where housing organisations internal processes need updating, to provide an equality of housing opportunity and service.
Have a look at this example Scenario for UPRN in the case of Accessibility:
Prospective tenant or purchaser with an accessible housing need (wheelchair user) starts looking for a new London home.
↘️ Via a property portal they find a home within a larger scheme, that isn’t quite right but is in an area that is convenient for work and schools. The property will require adaptations, but their budget is already stretched.
↘️ The portal listing has a UPRN number and is hyperlinked so they know to reference the UPRN with a database that holds the accessibility data. This might be one or all of the Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) member companies.
↘️ They input the UPRN - (it would be hyperlinked as standard), it brings up the property and its accessibility information. The property is actually a post 2015 London Plan new build and this three bed happens to have been built to M4(3)a Wheelchair Adaptable standards. On the listing are the developer’s plans for the M4(3)b Wheelchair Accessible standard version.
↘️ PURCHASER: They are disappointed by the loss of the third bedroom (because the developer used flawed and poorly conceived plans) but because of the accessible designs, they realise that at least they can do the work quite easily. It’ll be cheaper and quicker than doing it from scratch because the load bearing capacity of the bedroom ceiling and bathroom walls and ceilings are already designed to take the overhead ceiling hoist that the purchaser requires, along with the wiring spur that is already in place. Also, there are other wiring spurs in place, like the door assist. This is helpful to know all this because, the flat is on its third vendor and this information has been lost to general knowledge as the developer was made bankrupt, (hypothetically), and the previous occupiers had no accessibility needs - although they did enjoy some of the extra features, such as a place to put the double pushchair and bike, and the feel of the spacious central hallway.
↘️ TENANT: They have been looking for eleven months already and are quite frustrated by the lack of properties that meet their needs. They find one in a big BtR scheme. It’s right where they need to be, close to accessible transport links, and close enough to a job offer where they can accept the role and still meet their care needs. They use the hyperlink to the property accessibility details and it turns out that this BTR company has a process for wheelchair users. On receipt of an Occupational Therapist assessment, the landlord is happy to make the necessary adjustments, including installing a wet room and accessible kitchen, provided the tenant takes a 24 month lease. This is useful knowledge, because when the prospective tenant calls, the negotiator who answers the phone didn’t know any of this information - there’s been a change of operating company recently and it doesn’t appear on any of the marketing / property management information. The tenant pushes on the issue, and the negotiator escalates it to the Investment Committee that owns the property, who confirms that there is a process in place, and the tenant secures the property.
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