One of issues surrounding providing disabled access is “who is ultimately responsible?”
Article: Landlord/Tenant Dispute Over Americans With Disabilities Act Lawsuit Caused ‘The Bucket’ to Close
Analysis?
In general the landlord is responsible for the outside of the building and the tenant is responsible for the inside. But the ADA specifies broadly that both are responsible because both have agreed to the conditions of the site, either by leasing it or by owning it and not modifying it.
Landord and tenant disputes as old as the idea of leasing and the idea of property rights.
As you can see from the article below, this issue is still unresolved, especially if the lease does not explicitly state that one party is responsible.
As of July 1st of 2013, leases in California for commercial property must specify whether or not an accessibility assessment has been performed. And should such an assessment be performed, such a report should be made available for prospective tenants to review. This goes hand in hand with the changing commercial leasing forms which now often state that the tenant is responsible for ADA compliance.
The lease agreement’s added deferral of responsibility to the tenant makes it imperative that tenants and buyers of commercial property be assured to get a complete assessment before taking responsibility over the building and its ADA issues.
Such assessments in California are called CASp inspections, a service that we do provide.
Questions? Need an inspection? Call us at 866 982 3212 or help@accesssolutionllc.com
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