What is a reasonable modification?

The Federal Fair Housing Act "FHA" provides protections for people with disabilities. In addition to a prohibition against discriminating against someone because they are disabled, the FHA has two affirmative duties for those covered by the Act. One of them is to provide a reasonable accommodation. The other is that a housing provider must permit people with disabilities to make reasonable modifications to their dwelling or the common areas at the disabled person's expense that are necessary for the disabled person to use or enjoy the dwelling.

The Americans with Disabilities Act "ADA" has a similar provision. Under the ADA, a public accommodation (usually a commercial entity) must remove architectural barriers to the place of public accommodation necessary to afford the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations provided by the public accommodation to individuals with disabilities if it is readily achievable. Removal of architectural barriers are readily achievable if it can be accomplished with little cost and does not prove burdensome or substantially alter the goods or services provided by the public accommodation. Under the ADA, unlike the FHA, the public accommodation pays for the cost of barrier removal. If the barrier removal is not readily achievable, the public accommodation must normally make a reasonable accommodation to provide the goods, services, facilities, etc. to the disable person.

What is a reasonable accommodation?

The Federal Fair Housing Act "FHA" and the Americans with Disabilities Act "ADA" provides protections for people with disabilities. In addition to a prohibition against discriminating against someone because they are disabled, these laws have affirmative duties for those covered by the two Acts. Under the FHA, one of the affirmative duties is to permit reasonable modifications. In addition, a housing provider must make reasonable accommodations to its policies, practices or procedures if it is necessary for a disabled person to use or enjoy the dwelling.

Similarly, under the ADA, a housing provider must make reasonable accommodations to its policies, practices or procedures if it is necessary to afford the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages or accommodations provided by the public accommodation (usually the commercial entity) to individuals with disabilities. The ADA also contains a barrier removal requirement similar to reasonable modifications.

What is a disability?

The Federal Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act provides protections for people with disabilities. The Fair Housing Act uses the term, "handicap" while the Americans with Disabilities Act uses the term, "disability" but they are defined the same.

A person with a disability is someone who: (1) has a physical or mental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities (i.e., caring for one's self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, breathing, etc.); (2) has a record of such an impairment; or (3) is regarded as having such an impairment. A disability does not include a current illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance or is a transvestite. Courts have limited what constitutes a disability in a number of ways. For instance, the courts look to whether someone's condition substantially limits a major life activity in its corrected condition. Therefore, someone who is legally blind without glasses is not disabled if they are not impaired if they were to be fitted with glasses.