A 76-year-old woman with physical disabilities forced to ask strangers on the street to help her open the door to her Travancore building has won a significant legal case in which two owners corporations were ordered to pay her $10,000 and install automated doors and ramps in the building.

In a decision hailed as a victory for Victorians with disabilities, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that the owners corporations maintaining the complex had discriminated against Anne Black, a legally blind pensioner reliant on a wheelchair or scooter, by failing to make reasonable adjustments to the building’s common areas to accommodate her disability.

The case sets a legal precedent that could have widespread ramifications for owners corporations in all apartment buildings, including those completed before modern access standards were introduced.

Ms Black bought a fourth-storey unit in the apartment complex on Mount Alexander Road in 2013, two years before an unsuccessful operation on her foot left her permanently disabled.

Her physical disability meant it was difficult for Ms Black to use the heavy, manual doors in the common areas of the building and she sought orders requiring the owners corporation to, under the Equal Opportunity Act, modify the building so she could access the main entrance, courtyard and car park independently.

During the hearing, she described being “constantly frustrated at being denied personal access to my own building” and feeling “imprisoned in her own home”.

She also gave evidence that she resorted to waiting on the street footpath until a passer-by or fellow resident could assist her with the apartment’s main access door. On one occasion, a man she asked for help had demanded money from her and then fled without opening the door.

The building complied with building codes when it was constructed between 2006 and 2008, but would not meet new standards for disability access.

The Disability Discrimination Legal Service, acting on behalf for Ms Black, submitted an expert report outlining a series of necessary modification works, most of which tribunal member Bernadette Steele was satisfied were reasonable adjustments.

During the hearing, Ms Black dropped a previous request to modify the door to the garbage disposal area, work which was costed at $5350, on the condition that she would be provided with a personal garbage pick-up service.

Ms Steele ordered the two owners corporations that maintain the building to widen several doorways, install four automated doors and install a kerb rail and step ramp in the car park. The owners corporations were also ordered to jointly pay Ms Black $10,000 in compensation, an amount Ms Steele considered to be “conservative in the circumstances”.

“I accept that she suffered humiliation, stress, anxiety, frustration and embarrassment,” Ms Steele said in the ruling handed down last month. “In my view, these experiences were especially painful in relation to not being able to access her home from the street without help.”

According to a witness statement provided to the tribunal, the two owners corporations had $301,020 and $144,375 in their respective maintenance fund pools as at August 9, 2018.

Galina Roy, a senior manager from the owners corporations, told the tribunal the proposed modifications in the expert report would cost upwards of $42,000.

Ms Steele noted that both businesses appeared to be in a “strong financial position” but added that if a special levy were raised, each of the 54 lot owners within the complex would be asked for between $600 and $700.

The case would likely have far-reaching impacts for owners corporations across the state, said Simone Cusack, head of policy at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.

“This means that owners corporations may need to make physical changes to their building’s common areas so that they are accessible to owners and tenants with disabilities,” Ms Cusack said.

Ms Black’s barrister Ian Munt observed that the owners corporations had fought the case “tooth and nail”.

“I presume the owners corporation felt this matter had precedential value,” he said.

Domain sought comment from lawyers acting for the respondents.

The tribunal first handed down a decision in this case in February 2018, but the owners corporations appealed the matter at the Supreme Court of Victoria. In July, Justice Melinda Richards upheld the tribunal’s decision and dismissed the appeal.

The case returned to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in December to determine whether the adjustments Ms Black was seeking were reasonable.

allison.worrall@domain.com.au