Disabled Facilities Grants

If you're a homeowner you may be able to get help to pay for essential adaptations to your home if you or someone who lives with you has a disability.

After an assessment by health professionals, a Disabled Facilities Grant may be available to help you with the cost of:

1. Widening doors and install ramps
2. Improving access to your rooms and facilities; for example,  a downstairs bathroom or stair lifts
3. Providing heating and lighting systems that are suitable for you and that you can control
4. Improving access around your home to enable you to care for other people there

The amount of Disabled Facilities Grant you could receive depends on your circumstances. It will not affect any benefits that you’re getting.

If you sell or transfer the ownership of an adapted property within ten years of being awarded a grant of between £5,000 and £15,000, up to £10,000 of the grant may be repayable.

Application process

Your application will be referred to the occupational therapists at Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust who will do an assessment of your needs.

Based on this assessment of your needs, the occupational therapist will make recommendations for adaptations to your home to at Worcestershire County Council, who will decide if the recommended adaptations are necessary and appropriate.

If the adaptations are approved, the next step in your application will depend on the scale of the works. Minor adaptations under £1,000 may be dealt with directly by Social Services. Major adaptations over £1,000 will be sent to Care and Repair Worcestershire who will carry out a survey of your property and act as an advisor for your application.

How much grant could I qualify for?

Anyone who has a disability or someone living with them who has a disability and requires adaptations to their property can apply for Disabled Facilities Grant.

It is a ‘mandatory’ grant which means the law requires the right amount of grant to be provided to all qualifying applicants.

The amount of grant you are entitled to is worked out by taking the cost of the required works, assessing how much of this cost you should meet yourself through a means test, and then awarding a grant of up to £30,000 for the remainder of the costs.

The means test will require you to provide proof of your average weekly income and certain benefits, and to take account any savings above £6,000. Some benefits relating specifically to a person's disability will be ignored.

And if you are not the owner of the property, you will have to provide confirmation that that owner is happy for works to be carried out to their property.

How long will it take?

While there is no specific timeframe we can give, due to the requirement to involve several agencies to assess your needs, recommend works, approve the works and calculate the amount of grant, you should expect to have to be patient with your application.

Major adaptations in particular can sometimes be a lengthy process and have been known to take up to a year or more before a completed application is in place.

All applications are prioritised according to the needs shown in the assessments by Social Services.

No works can be carried out until approval in writing has been given.

Finally funding for disabled facilities grants is not unlimited each year, and so in the event that all the funding is used up on other grant applications your grant may have to wait until funding becomes available for approval.