Disabled Facilities Grants in North Devon: how they work and what they cover
A council grant that can pay towards adapting a home. Here is what it is for, who decides, and where we can help you get through it.
HomeSafe Devon · · 6 minute read
If you have started looking into adapting a parent's home, you will have come across the Disabled Facilities Grant. It is worth understanding properly, because it can pay for a good part of the work, and because there is a fair amount written about it that is either out of date or simply wrong.
Here is the honest version.
What it is
A Disabled Facilities Grant is money from the local council to help pay for changes to a home so a disabled person can carry on living there. It is not a benefit and it is not a loan. It is a grant towards specific work, agreed in advance.
The kinds of work it is usually used for:
- Making a home easier to get into and out of, such as a ramp or a level threshold
- Making a bathroom usable, often a level access shower in place of a bath
- Improving access to rooms someone needs, which can include a stairlift or a through-floor lift
- Adapting a kitchen so someone can prepare food themselves
- Heating, lighting and controls where the existing ones cannot be used safely
Who decides
Your council does. In our area that means North Devon Council or Torridge District Council, depending on where the house is. Barnstaple, Braunton, Ilfracombe and South Molton fall under North Devon. Bideford and Great Torrington fall under Torridge.
An occupational therapist, usually arranged through Devon County Council adult social care, assesses what the person needs. The council then decides what it will fund.
The parts people find surprising
It is means tested. For an adult applicant, the council looks at income and savings and works out whether you should contribute, and how much. Some people get the full amount. Some get part of it. Some are assessed as able to pay for the work themselves. Applications for a disabled child are not means tested in the same way.
It is based on need, not on preference. The grant pays for what the assessment says is necessary and appropriate. If you want a larger or better finished version of the same job, that difference is yours to pay.
There is a maximum. Councils work to an upper limit set nationally, and they have some discretion around it. Ask your council what applies in your case rather than relying on a figure you read online.
It takes time. There is an assessment, then a decision, then the work. How long that takes depends on the council's waiting list and on the job itself. Nobody can honestly promise you a date at the start.
Do not start the work first. If work has already been done, it will not normally be funded. Get the decision before anything is ordered.
How to start
Contact adult social care at Devon County Council on 0345 155 1007 and ask for an assessment of your parent's needs at home. That is the door into the process. Your council's housing team handles the grant itself once the assessment is done.
You do not need us to do any of this. It is free, and you can do it yourself.
Where we come in
Three places, and we will be straight about the limits.
Before you apply. Our assessment gives you a written plan of everything that would make the house safer, whether or not a grant is involved. That is useful evidence to have in your hand, and it tells you what the whole picture looks like rather than only the part a grant might cover.
Alongside the application. We can explain what the process involves and help you get your paperwork together. We cannot decide the outcome, promise eligibility, or speed the council up.
The work the grant does not cover. Most plans have items outside the scope of a grant, or items you would rather get on with now. We arrange and manage those, and we do not touch grant funded work unless the council has appointed us to.
One thing worth saying
Plenty of the jobs that make the biggest difference are small and quick. A second stair rail, brighter bulbs at the top and bottom of the stairs, a rail beside the front step. These are rarely worth waiting for a grant to do, and waiting can mean months of a house being harder to live in than it needs to be.
Look at the whole picture, do the quick things now, and take your time over the big ones.
The information here is general. Only your council can tell you what you are entitled to, and the assessment is theirs to make.
Wondering about your own house, or your mum or dad's?
The assessment is free. We will come and look at the whole house, then put a written plan with prices on your portal so you can think it over.
Book a free visit