No owner wants to wake up to surprise expenses or costly lawsuits. You can avoid both by staying on top of your property’s accessibility compliance standards. Across the nation, well-intentioned multifamily professionals are facing citations and fines for noncompliance. Many are surprised to discover that employing licensed architects and contractors does not automatically mean that their properties are compliant. Mark English, President at E&A Team, Inc., has specialized in accessibility compliance inspections for more than 22 years with operations in all 50 states. He has witnessed beautiful new construction with notable accessibility violations. Often times, it’s an issue of communication rather than competence. “A lot of developers are very cloak-and-dagger about where they’re going to get their money because they don’t want everyone to know. So sometimes architects, contractors, and engineers who are asked to build something may not bother to ask the question, ‘What sort of funding do we use?’ That’s a majorly important question!” These experts can’t meet stringent accessibility regulations for specific types of federally funded projects if they don’t know what type of project they’re creating. On-site staff is often completely unaware that there is a problem until a resident or employee files a complaint. Their complaints are generally followed by lawsuits so it’s better to address issues early. Throughout his career, English has witness two common violations that cause problems on many multifamily properties. The first is a lack of cane detection under stairways. “For the visually impaired, you’re required to have a minimum of 80 inches of vertical clearance along an accessible route. If you have paving or concrete under a set of stairs, that would lead a person with any visual impairment to assume that they can walk right under the stairway. The goal is to have...