On 30th November 2023, NTSELAT published updated guidance for estate and letting agents to improve material information in property listings. Part C included accessibility for the first time. Whilst responsibility has since passed from NTSELAT to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for enforcing rules under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA), and the sector still awaits clarification on the guidelines, the technical implementations for property listings remain in use on property portals and CRMs.   

Guy Harris is a former sales agent, with over twenty five years in the property sector, twenty two of which as a wheelchair user following a spinal injury. He has made it simple for Sales and Letting Agents to integrate accessibility and inclusion as a familiar and normalised part of your everyday business. His work changes the zeitgeist for agents to be a keystone solution to the issue of accessibility in housing, rather than the scapegoat. 

We've standardised what we're asking you to do and effected the triple participation of agents, CRM platforms and the property portals - to make the process pragmatic and implementable. 

We'll host an initial leadership session, and then train your staff with a comprehensive, one hour online training via Teams or Zoom. 

The purpose of the AccessiblePRS training is to:
 

Equally, we provide clarity on what's not your responsibility, so that you can approach the topic with confidence and the same approach to all your applicants.

AccessiblePRS launched this pragmatic and implementable training with Chestertons, one of London's largest letting agencies, and we've since worked with some incredible people at fantastic and progressive organisations, including: 

In the UK, there are currently 1.8m households that contain at least one person with a disability, which includes 1.2m wheelchair users. Additionally, we have an ageing population that will see 1 in 4 of us aged over 65 by the year 2036.

In 2019-20, 4.6m households rented their home from a private landlord, representing 19% of all households in England. Yet according to Commonweal funded Abode Impact research, 91% of wheelchair users experienced barriers accessing the PRS. 

Covid-19 has highlighted the urgent need to assist people with additional accessible housing needs. Meanwhile these statistics show the commercial sense to make the mainstream private rented sector inclusive by levelling the playing field for disabled and older renters.

Of the 1.8m people with accessible housing needs, 700,000 are within the top half of income demographics, busting a persistent and erroneous myth that people living with disability are always in need of social and financial support.

Please contact Guy Harris for further information. Or complete the form below and we'll follow up with you directly.