If you think you have been discriminated against by a business because of your hearing loss, you may be able to take legal action under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA).

You can choose whether to start by complaining to your service provider or take legal action straight away.

It is important that you remember that the time limit for starting legal action is six months from the date of the alleged discrimination.

You should start by contacting the service provider to discuss your concerns. Use their complaints procedure if they have one. You have to decide what is the best way to start. Our Know Your Rights pack gives advice on how to contact service providers.

If this does not work, then you could use the Disability Conciliation Service (external link, opens new browser window). This is an independent service that aims to help disabled people and service providers to resolve problems.

If you still cannot reach a settlement with the service provider, the next step is to consider taking your case to the County Court.

Bringing a complaint

If you want to take any claim for discrimination to court, you have to do this within six months less one day of the date when the discrimination happened. If you are using the Disability Conciliation Service, your time limit will be extended by an extra two months.

How we can help

We can give you more information on how to challenge discrimination. We do this by:

Further information

Find out more about the DDA and your rights in our section on Rights and duties.