How to check a Rightmove listing for accessibility

Rightmove does not have an accessibility filter for property searches, and most listings never mention steps, door widths or thresholds at all. So before you spend an afternoon travelling to a viewing that fails at the front door, it is worth learning to read a listing the way an accessibility-minded surveyor would. It takes about ten minutes per property once you know what to look for.

Why checking a Rightmove listing takes detective work

This is not your imagination. As Guy Harris of AccessiblePRS put it in Rightmove's own article on accessible renting:

"When a disabled renter or someone with accessible housing needs goes to property listing websites, they have to do a bit of detective work on the incomplete information to determine if it's accessible."

The same article acknowledges that "some Rightmove users have asked us to create search filters for accessible properties". The filters have not arrived because the data is not collected when a home is listed — nobody measures the threshold or the doorways. Until that changes, the detective work falls to you. Here is the method, in the order that wastes the least time. (For the search strategy that gets you to a shortlist in the first place, see how to find a wheelchair accessible home in the UK.)

Step 1: read the floorplan before the photos

The floorplan answers structural questions faster than any photo. Check, in order:

• Is there a WC or bathroom on the entrance level? Only around two thirds of English homes have one, and it is the feature that most often decides whether a home is workable.
• The stairs. One straight flight is the easiest to adapt with a stairlift; winders and split landings are harder. Count the flights between the front door and the main bathroom.
• The hallway and landings. A wheelchair needs roughly a 1500mm circle to turn. Floorplans usually show room dimensions — use them to judge whether the hallway is a corridor or a turning space.
• The bathroom itself. Is it labelled "wet room" or "shower room", or is it a bathroom with a bath? Is there space to approach the WC from the side?

Two honest caveats: floorplans are rarely drawn to scale, and they almost never show door widths. Treat the floorplan as a filter, not a promise.

Step 2: decode the photos

Photos tell you what the text will not, if you interrogate them:

• The front door shot. Count the steps. No front-door photo at all, or one cropped at knee height, is itself information — see step 4. A handrail beside the door usually means steps, even when you cannot see them.
• The threshold. A wheelchair-friendly threshold is 15mm or less — about the thickness of a pound coin. Look at the bottom of the front and garden doors for a raised sill or weather bar.
• Use known objects for scale. A standard UK internal door is about 762mm wide; a radiator in a hallway shows you how much passing width is really left. If a doorway looks narrow next to the door leaf, it probably is.
• The approach. Look past the door: is the path sloped, gravelled, or stepped at the kerb? Is the parking on the street or beside the house?
• The bathroom. A step up into the shower, a bath with no shower over it, or a WC boxed into a corner all show up clearly in photos.

Step 3: search the listing text for the phrases that matter

Rightmove introduced standard accessibility phrases for rental listings in 2021. Where an agent has used them, they are the most reliable words on the page:

Beyond the standard labels, it is worth searching listings for "level access", "wet room", "walk-in shower", "ground floor bathroom" and "no chain" (adapted homes are often probate sales). One caution: "wheelchair accessible" itself has no legal definition in property listings, so treat it as a claim to verify, not a fact.

Step 4: read the silences

The hardest skill is noticing what is missing. Agents mention accessibility features when they exist, because they are selling points. So:

• No mention of steps does not mean no steps. It usually means nobody thought to check.
• No front-door photo, or an entrance always shot from an angle, deserves a direct question.
• No floorplan on a listing where every comparable property has one is worth asking about too.

Silence is not evidence of a problem — but it is never evidence of the absence of one. Every silence becomes a question for step 5.

Step 5: email the agent before you book

A short, specific email sorts most of the remainder. Ask:

1. How many steps are there between the street (or parking) and the front door, and roughly how high are they?
2. Is there a step or raised threshold at the front door itself?
3. Could you measure the narrowest doorway on the entrance level?
4. Is there a WC on the entrance level?
5. How far is the parking from the door, and what is the surface like?

Agents rarely know these answers offhand, but a good one will find out — and asking in writing gives you an answer you can rely on. If the listing survives all five steps, it has earned a viewing; take our viewing checklist for mobility needs with you.

The automated version of this method

Everything above is exactly what Senso does when you paste a Rightmove listing link at wearesenso.com: it analyses the photos and floorplan and produces a free, EPC-style accessibility certificate — banded verdicts on the entrance, door widths, bathroom, turning space and more, each with a plain-English reason. Where the photos cannot support a verdict, it says "insufficient evidence" rather than guessing, which tells you precisely which questions to send the agent. You can read what the certificate covers and what it deliberately cannot claim — it is a triage tool, not a survey, and it does not replace a viewing.