Pub. 3 2018 Issue 2

12 www.ctaahq.org THE IMPORTANCE OF ACCESSIBILITY COMPLIANCE IN MULTIFAMILY By Property Management Insider G reg Proctor, Vice President of RealPage Compliance Services, has been preaching the need for more awareness of accessibilit y compliance issues with properties for years. Out of all of the properties he has inspected over the years (and that is many years), he has yet to find one that is completely in compliance with the regulations that govern that property. “While some of the issues on these properties are small, the properties are still out of compliance and are great liabilities to their owners and managers. Multifamily investors continue to brush off the seriousness of the problem, even with all of the lawsuits and complaints lodged against properties nationally,” Proctor says. According to Proctor, the common responses given for non-compliance include the following: a) there has never been a complaint before, b) a federal agency is overseeing a regulatory agreement on the property and has inspected the property for accessibility compliance, c) the owner and manager performed an accessibility review in the past. Proctor says that nothing could be further from the truth: “Residents and applicants file complaints daily across the country. The responsibilit y for accessibilit y compliance falls squarely on the owner’s shoulders. Regulatory agencies are not tasked with performing accessibility reviews for properties, so they should not be relied on to ensure compliance. In addition, accessibility reviews performed