Accessibility in an Office Building — What the Law Requires, Who Is Responsible, and How to Maintain Accessibility Over Time

Most office-building owners see accessibility as something you finish once — you build a ramp, install a lift, get a signature, and move on to the next worry. From my experience as a building manager in Israel, this is the mistake that ends in an order, a lawsuit, or a tenant who leaves because the authority held up their business licence. In Israel, accessibility is an ongoing legal obligation under the Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law, it is a condition for a business licence, and it is a building component that wears out and requires maintenance exactly like a lift or a fire-suppression system.

Why This Concerns You — Beyond a "Good Deed"

Accessibility is not a favour you do for people with disabilities; it is a right anchored in law, and breaching it carries civil, administrative and sometimes criminal liability. In an office building the issue is especially acute: the building hosts employees, visitors, clients and suppliers — and at any given moment some of them are people with disabilities, parents with a stroller, people with a temporary injury, or older adults.

Poor accessibility is not merely an offence; it undermines your tenants' ability to operate, exposes you to lawsuits, and lowers the property's value in the eyes of a tenant who understands they may inherit a problem with the local authority. The tenant who applies for a business licence and comes back with an accessibility demand — that is the one who turns to you. A proactive approach is many times cheaper than a retrofit after the fact.

Three Pillars: Structure, Route, Service

The most common mistake is to think accessibility equals a ramp and a lift. The law and the regulations distinguish between three separate layers, and each one is a separate obligation:

• Accessibility of the building and environment: the physical components — access routes, ramps, accessible lifts, disabled parking, accessible toilets, opening widths, handles, marking and signage. Governed mainly by the planning and building regulations and by the Israeli standard for accessibility of the built environment.
• Accessibility of the route: the continuous chain from the street, from the parking and from the public-transport stop into the building and within it. Accessibility is measured as a chain — if one link is broken (a single step, a heavy door, a blocked passage), the entire route counts as inaccessible even if the rest is perfect.
• Accessibility of the service: the aspect most neglected. Even a physically accessible building must provide accessible service — written procedures, training for reception and security staff, assistive aids, and adaptations at service points. Service accessibility is handled by the service accessibility consultant, a role entirely separate from the buildings accessibility consultant.

An office building is required to meet all three pillars. An accessibility approval for business-licensing purposes will almost always require a separate opinion from a buildings, infrastructure and environment accessibility consultant and from a service accessibility consultant.

The Legal Framework — What Actually Binds You

The legal skeleton in Israel is made up of several layers that complement one another:

• The Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Law, 5758-1998: the framework law. It sets out the principle of accessibility to public places and public service, and the detailed accessibility regulations were enacted under it.
• The Equal Rights for Persons with Disabilities Regulations (Service Accessibility Adaptations): these translate the principle into practical requirements — when an existing building must make adaptations, timetables, and what counts as a "public place". An office building that serves the public is included in many of the cases.
• The Planning and Building Regulations (Permit Application, Its Conditions and Fees) — the accessibility chapter: these apply to new construction and to substantial changes, and refer to the relevant Israeli standards for accessibility of the built environment.
• The Business Licensing Law, 5728-1968: conditions the grant of a business licence on meeting accessibility requirements. Failure to comply can delay or deny a licence — and in practice, the local authority will require an accessibility consultant's approval as part of the licensing process. The connection is detailed in our business-licensing checklist for an office building.

New Building vs. Existing Building — A Critical Distinction

New construction must be fully accessible from the ground up. In an existing building, the law imposes a duty to make accessibility adaptations subject to reasonableness and to the deadlines set in the regulations — but "existing" is not an exemption; it is a timetable. Anyone who behaves as if an older building is exempt from accessibility discovers the mistake when a complaint arrives, when a tenant asks for an approval, or when an inspector from the local authority or the Equal Rights Commission shows up.

Who Is an Accessibility Consultant and Why You Shouldn't Skip One

An accessibility consultant is a professional certified and licensed under the law, and there are two types:

• Buildings, infrastructure and environment accessibility consultant: handles the physical layer — access, lifts, parking, toilets, signage.
• Service accessibility consultant: handles procedures, staff training and service adaptations.

In a substantial share of cases — a building permit, an approval for business licensing, making adaptations in an existing building — a signed opinion from an accessibility consultant is not a recommendation but a formal requirement that the authority recognises.

The temptation to save money and rely on "a contractor who understands this stuff" is a primary source of field problems. A contractor may install the ramp perfectly from a structural standpoint — but only an accessibility consultant will examine the entire route: whether the ramp gradient meets the standard's requirements, whether there is a handrail at the required height, whether there is a lower guard rail, and whether the entrance door at the top of the ramp opens in the right direction and with the right force. Investing in a consultant at the planning stage is incomparably cheaper than retrofitting after the fact.

Accessibility Wears Out — and This Is the Part Everyone Forgets

This is the most important point in this article. Accessibility is not a fixed state; it is a state that wears out. A building that passed a perfect accessibility inspection on handover day can become inaccessible within months — without anyone noticing, until the person for whom the building is genuinely not accessible arrives.

Real examples I have encountered directly:

• An accessible lift that fell out of accessibility: the voice announcement of the floor broke down, the Braille marking on the button panel wore away, or the door-closing time was reset by a lift technician and became too short. The lift works — but it no longer meets accessibility requirements. See also lift maintenance standards.
• A disabled parking space effectively stolen: the marking on the asphalt faded, the sign was uprooted, and an unauthorised vehicle permanently occupies the space. No one enforces it.
• An automatic entrance door whose closing mechanism broke: it closes too fast and too hard — turning from an enabler of independent entry into an actual obstacle.
• A ramp that became slippery: the walking surface lost its roughness over the years, or a carpet was installed that got cut and worn — and the ramp became dangerous in the rain.
• An accessible passage that got blocked: a storage box, a plant pot, a drinks machine placed there "just for a while" — narrowing the passage below the required 120 cm. "For a while" became two years.

None of these are rare faults; they are routine. That is why accessibility components must be included in the building's preventive maintenance programme, exactly like any other system. If you run an annual preventive-maintenance checklist, the accessibility item must appear in it — checking the soundness of accessible lifts, Braille condition, door mechanisms, parking markings, signage and walking surfaces.

Accessibility as a Building System — The Link to Standard 1525

The right way to think about accessibility is as a building system, not as a detached legal clause. When it is managed according to the principles of Israeli Standard 1525 for building maintenance — a written programme, a documented log, and periodic checks — accessibility is preserved systematically.

Every periodic check documented in the log creates cumulative evidence: the building was kept accessible over time, not neglected. That evidence is worth gold when a complaint reaches the Equal Rights Commission — it proves there was no neglect but systematic, documented maintenance.

Accessibility and Emergency Evacuation — A Critical Interface

Fire safety and accessibility meet at the most critical point: emergency evacuation. A person with a disability must be able to leave the building in an emergency — and this requires planning of accessible escape routes, protected refuge areas in multi-storey construction, and emergency signage at a height suitable for people in wheelchairs. Do not plan fire safety and accessibility separately — they are part of the same system.

Enforcement and Liability — What Happens When You Don't Comply

Non-compliance with accessibility is not a theoretical matter. The Equal Rights Commission for Persons with Disabilities is authorised to handle complaints, conduct conciliation proceedings and recommend enforcement. On the civil plane, a person harmed by inaccessibility can sue — and the law allows compensation without proof of pecuniary damage: the breach itself is enough to establish a cause of action. On the licensing plane, non-compliance may delay or deny a business licence, which paralyses your tenants' activity.

It is important to understand who is exposed: not only "the building" as an abstract entity, but the property owner and sometimes the building manager personally. When the defect was one that could have been foreseen and prevented — a door mechanism that broke and was not repaired, a passage that was blocked and not cleared — the claim raised will be neglect.

Insurance is not an automatic remedy here. A policy may limit cover where the insured failed to meet a recognised legal obligation. It is worth verifying with the agent what is covered and what is not — a subject we touched on in office-building insurance.

Accessibility and Occupational Safety — The Link to Employer Duties

In an office building, some of the users are employees — and so accessibility also meets the employer's duties under labour law. A work environment must be accessible to an employee with a disability, and this duty often relies on infrastructure the building provides: entrance, lift, toilets and escape routes. See the Organisation of Labour Inspection Law and safety in the office — it is worth seeing the two areas as one continuum of responsibility toward everyone who is in the building.

A Practical Action Plan — What to Do Now

If you manage an office building and are not sure where you stand, here is an order of operations that restores control without waiting for a crisis:

• An up-to-date accessibility survey: commission a buildings accessibility consultant and a service accessibility consultant to survey the situation. The output is an orderly gap picture — what is fine, what is missing, and what is urgent. Without a written survey you are operating blind.
• A prioritised adaptations plan: you don't have to fix everything in one day, but you must have a written plan with an order of priorities and a timetable. A documented plan proves seriousness and protects against a neglect claim even if execution is phased.
• Bringing accessibility into ongoing maintenance: add accessibility components to the maintenance log — periodic checks of accessible lifts (including voice announcement and Braille), parking markings, door mechanisms, signage and walking surfaces.
• Training the building staff: service accessibility starts with the reception and security staff. Short, documented training — how to assist a person with a disability, what to do if the accessible lift is out of order, where assistive aids are stored — is a requirement, and it also improves the experience of everyone who enters.
• Filing the opinions and approvals: keep the accessibility consultants' opinions, the approvals and the inspection log in one accessible place. This is the file that will be requested in licensing, in insurance and in litigation.

At Domera we manage accessibility as a maintained system — a survey, an adaptations plan, and documented periodic checks that prove compliance over time. See property management.