Disability Discrimination Act 2005

poet123

chattychappy wrote: »

poet123 has articulated the issues very well and I think we don't have the facts to determine whether this is discrimination or not, IMHO.

But some areas are certainly irrelevant:

1) whether the OP's son needs a credit card or can make purchases another way. This may be a practical workaround, but it's not what the OP was asking. I could cope without credit cards - so what?

2) credit cards are a right/privilege debate. The only rights I can see here are the freedom to contract by both parties as constrained by rights not to be discriminated against on the ground of disability

3) whether the OP's son is actually a good risk or not.

The facts we don't have is whether the processes applied by the banks are discriminatory or not - it seems the banks have been opaque. Failure to have clear procedures which prevent discrimination can be sufficient to facilitate discimination and incur liability. Legal advice really is needed - but I'd be surprised if one of the disabled charities hasn't already looked into this.

Another thing - posters have talked about the OP's son being treated the same as everybody else - ie the same as any other "unemployed" person. I'm with poet123 on this point.

But the issue is that indirect discrimination is also illegal and service providers are even meant to make proactive efforts to accommodate - this isn't just wheelchair ramps to shops, but also in processes and policy. The result is that the effect of a process or policy can be discriminatory even if that is not the intention. Of course there are obvious legitimate exceptions. A simplistic example is you cannot of have a policy of not employing pregnant staff. This is sex discrimination. Even though the target is "pregnant people" rather than "females". Because only females become pregnant, it is sex discrimination. To have such a rule, therefore, a genuine reason must be found - perhaps because the work is a temporary post involving working with x-rays.

So in the OPs case, I suspect there is an argument to be had if form layout or following a dogmatic procedure prevents disabled people such as her son getting credit without due consideration. This could be satisfactorily overcome by the bank using properly designed forms or giving individual consideration.

Based on the facts from the OP, I suspect her son has been discriminated against because of a failure to pro-actively attempt to accommodate disabled people such as her son in its processes. There seems to be a "lumping" together with people of a different risk profile. But had they taken more care, it is still possible they would refuse credit, and then it would be legitimate.

[NB there was a squabble about legal qualifications earlier. For the record I'm a lawyer but this is outside of my area of practice. I had [B]a quick chat with another solicitor before writing this post.[/B] What I write mustn't be taken as professional advice.]

I have 3 here at the moment!!

Any

poet123 wrote: »

The son owns property bought by the trust fund and receives rental income, in addition to benefits and payments from the fund. He has, according to the OP "considerably more assets than either her or her husband"

You mean the one that as it was later stated - the assets which belongs to the trust fund as a separate entity and it is the trust fund that gets the rental income?

We are going round in circles... I am sure my head is definitely starting to spin already...

And that is the problem of this story... It changes.

poet123

Any wrote: »

You mean the one that as it was later stated - the assets which belongs to the trust fund as a separate entity and it is the trust fund that gets the rental income?

We are going round in circles... I am sure my head is definitely starting to spin already...

And that is the problem of this story... It changes.

The fact is that his income from all sources exceeds his mothers, who was offered a card.

zppp

poet123 wrote: »

The fact is that his income from all sources exceeds his mothers, who was offered a card.

And she put herself down as employed on the application.
He put himself as unemployed. If he put in retired, his income would be taken into consideration. Is that too difficult to understand, I can spell it out for you if you so like...

Fang_3

poet123 wrote: »

The fact is that his income from all sources exceeds his mothers, who was offered a card.

But that income is not guaranteed at all and he doesn't have an equivalent credit history to that of his mothers. And he may not have a current account held with that bank for a sufficient amount of time.

hullight

Why doesn't he sell one of his houses, then he can buy all the tellys and PlayStations he wants?

poet123

Fang wrote: »

How would the bank be able to be pro-active when the applicant did not disclose his disability until he had been declined?

After he had been declined and the full disclosure was made, a re assessment taking the full info into account should have been made. It wasn't.

The failure is to do that and be seen to do that, not the outcome.

Any

poet123 wrote: »

The fact is that his income from all sources exceeds his mothers, who was offered a card.

Hmmm... and I think you find out that there are people on here with £50k income and employment with "declined" purely on the basis of no credit history..

LilacPixie

Chappy - I personally would consider an area of an application for asking or insisting that I disclose my disability status or lack of to be intrusive, unnessesary and having no baring what so ever on my risk profile to a lender.

In the OP case individual consideration was given and his application was still rejected.

poet123

zppp wrote: »

And she put herself down as employed on the application.
He put himself as unemployed. If he put in retired, his income would be taken into consideration. Is that too difficult to understand, I can spell it out for you if you so like...

Yet it wasn't when the source of his income was explained.