Letting agency in hot water over treatment of disabled tenant

Wheelchair user demands £9,000 compensation after claiming his home was wrongly advertised as accessible, leaving him trapped, exhausted and reliant on carers.

Campaign group Living Rent has protested outside the offices of C~URB Lettings in Edinburgh (picture) over the treatment of a disabled tenant who claims his home was wrongly advertised as accessible, leaving him unable to live independently.

Wheelchair user Lucas Honey, 36, told the Daily Record he spent more than four years seeking adaptations he says should have been in place from the outset. He claims the layout of the flat in Granton Harbour and access to the building left him unable to move around his home without help.

He is demanding £8,954.71 in compensation, which he says is equivalent to 50 per cent of the rent he has paid since March 2024.

It has been an exhausting and heartbreaking four and a half years.”

Honey says: “It has been an exhausting and heartbreaking four-and-a half-years, trying to get my property adapted that should have been adapted in the first place.

“In that time, I have had constant promises broken, letters and complaints ignored, and been treated like a nuisance by the people I pay rent to.”

He adds: “Not being able to use my own home independently whilst simultaneously raising my rent by over 27 per cent shouldn’t happen.”

According to Honey, the situation left him reliant on paid carers and forced him to remain in unsuitable accommodation due to a shortage of accessible housing.

He says his compensation claim only covers the period since the letting agent first engaged with him, adding: “If I was asking from when I moved in, and promises started being broken, that would be over £20,000.”

C~URB Lettings has acknowledged the flats were incorrectly advertised as fully accessible, explaining that it “bought the building already designed”. A spokesperson said all adaptations requested by Honey have now been completed and the firm remains willing to continue working with him.

Picture Courtesy of Living Rent.