Getting help with home improvements

Help you can get to improve your home

A local authority can offer different types of help with home improvements. It will have its own rules about the types of help it will offer, and about the conditions you must meet in order to qualify for help.

By law, these rules must not discriminate against you because of your age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. In addition, a local authority might have policies which don't allow other types of discrimination such as discrimination against older people.

To find out if you can get help with home improvements and the help available in your area, contact your local authority. Your local authority can help you do one of the following:

• adapt, improve, or repair your home. This could be in the form of a grant or loan. It could be by providing labour, tools, or cheap materials to help you carry out the work. It could be by providing details of builders who can carry out the work, or by providing free or low cost surveys, or advice on carrying out repairs

• buy a new home if it decides that this would be a better way of improving your living conditions than carrying out work on your current home. The help could be in the form of a grant or loan

• buy a new home, if it has decided to buy your current home. The help could be in the form of a grant or loan

• demolish your home, or build a new home for you, if your previous home has been demolished. The help could be in the form of a grant or loan

If you, or someone that you live with, are disabled, you might be able to get a disabled facilities grant for adaptations or providing facilities for the disabled person.

You can apply to Houses into Homes to get a loan to make your property fit to sell or let. This is a Welsh government scheme and you'll need to apply through your local council. 

Which properties your local authority can help improve

Your local authority can help improve a building, part of a building, a caravan, or a boat, as long as the property is your home, or it's available for you to live in as your home.

Application forms

A local authority can have its own application forms for help, and its own rules about what you have to do to apply for help. Ask your local authority for more information about this.

If you're disabled, a local authority must provide application forms in a form you can use, for example, in large print.

Your rights when you apply for help with home improvements

Your local authority will have its own rules about the conditions you must meet in order to get help. For example, its rules might say you can't get a grant if your savings are over a certain limit. Although your local authority can have its own rules, there are certain things that it must or must not do when it provides help with home improvements. Your local authority must have rules about help with home improvements, but it can't have rules which are completely rigid or unreasonable. For example, it can't say it will never give any grants, and it must take your individual circumstances into account if you apply for help. Also, the rules must not discriminate against you because of your age, disability, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.

When you apply for help with home improvements your local authority must do all of the following:

• make sure that a copy of its rules, including the types of help it provides, are available for you to look at, free of charge, at its main office. It must also make sure that you can get a summary of the rules by post, although it might charge you for this

• make sure it follows its own rules when you ask for help

• give you written information about terms and conditions under which it will help you before it helps you

• make sure you have had the right advice and information about any responsibilities you'll have if it helps you. For example, if you'll have to pay for some of the repairs yourself, your local authority must make sure you have had advice and information about this

• take into account your ability to pay towards any help it offers you, before you have to pay anything. For example, it shouldn't offer you a loan if you can't afford to repay it, or if it offers you a grant but expects you to pay money towards it, it must take into account your ability to do so

• get your consent before carrying out any works on your home, if you're a home-owner

• get the consent of everyone who is likely to be affected, if it decides to change work it has agreed to help with. For example, it would need to do this if it agrees to install gas central heating, but then wants to change this to electric central heating instead

• get your consent before it changes any of the conditions you must meet in order to get help. For example, if it offers you a grant on the condition that you pay £500 towards the cost of repairs, but it wants to increase this amount to £1000, it has to get your consent first

If you rent your home

If you rent your home and apply to your local authority for help with home improvements, you'll need to get your landlord's permission before the local authority will agree to help you. If you're disabled and the changes are to do with your disability, your landlord shouldn't refuse permission unless they have a good reason. In some cases, your landlord might be responsible for making the changes.

Find out more about asking your landlord to make reasonable adjustments.

If your home is in need of repair, your landlord might have to do the repairs you need.

For more information about your landlord's responsibility to do repairs, see Repairs in rented housing.

Payment of grants and loans

Generally, a local authority does not have to pay a grant or loan within any particular time limit. However, if your local authority's own rules set a time limit, it must pay you within this time limit.

If you own your home

If you've taken out a loan to make home improvements you might be able to get a government loan to help with interest payments. This is called 'support for mortgage interest’ (SMI).

You might get SMI if you’re getting:

• Universal Credit

• Pension Credit

• income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance

• income-related Employment and Support Allowance

• Income Support

Your interest payments will be covered by SMI if you have to make the improvements so your home is fit to live in, and you’re:

• fixing your heating system - like replacing your boiler if it’s broken

• installing something so you can prepare and cook food - like a hob or oven

• installing a bath, shower, washbasin, sink or toilet

• installing electric lights or sockets

• installing a way to store fuel or rubbish

• installing drainage

• fixing an unsafe structure like your roof

• damp-proofing or insulating your home

• providing fresh air or natural light

• adapting your home for a disabled person

• providing separate bedrooms for a boy and girl aged 10-19 - if they live with you and you or your partner are responsible for them

You’ll have to pay the SMI loan back, but usually only when you sell your home or give it to someone else. Find out if you can get SMI and what to think about before you apply.

Disabled facilities grants

A disabled facilities grant is a grant that you can get from your local authority for work that is essential to help a disabled person live an independent life. You can, for example, get a disabled facilities grant for the following things:-

• making it easier to get in and out of your home, for example, by widening doors or providing ramps

• making it easier to get to a living room, bedroom, toilet, bathroom or kitchen, for example, by putting in a stairlift, or providing a downstairs bathroom

• making it easier or safer to get access to your garden

• providing suitable bathroom or kitchen facilities

• providing or improving a heating system

• ensuring your safety, for example, by providing a specially adapted room in which it would be safe to leave you unattended, or by providing improved lighting for better visibility

• helping you get around at home so you can care for someone who lives with you and needs care.

A local authority must give you a disabled facilities grant if you meet the conditions for getting one.

Applying for a disabled facilities grant

Owner-occupiers, landlords, tenants or contract holders, licensees, and occupiers of some houseboats and park homes can apply for a disabled facilities grant, provided the work is for the benefit of a disabled person who lives or will live in the property.

To apply for a disabled facilities grant, you need to fill in a form which you can get from your local authority. They might ask for information and/or for tests to be carried out before you make a formal application. You might also need to get approval for building regulations, planning, listed building or conservation area purposes.

Your local authority might have a list of local architects, surveyors and builders who specialise in renovation work which you could ask to see when choosing a contractor for the work to your home. If you intend to carry out the work yourself, you won't be able to claim for the cost of your labour.

Once you have applied for a grant, your local authority must tell you about its decision in writing as soon as it can, and no later than six months after you applied.

Qualifying for a disabled facilities grant

You can only get a disabled facilities grant if the work you need done on your home is:-

• necessary and appropriate to meet your needs. Your local authority will normally ask an occupational therapist for their opinion on whether or not you need the work done; and

• reasonable and practical, given the age of your home and the condition it's in. For example, if your home need serious repairs, it might not be practical to do the work you need.

If you live in rented accommodation and are applying for a disabled facilities grant for work to a communal area of the property in which you live, you should make sure that you're responsible for doing the work. If your landlord is responsible for doing the work, you'll not be able to get a grant. Your landlord might be able to apply for a grant instead.

How much you will get

A disabled facilities grant will be no more than £30,000 in England and £36,000 in Wales. However, your local authority can top up this up, as it can give you other help with home improvements (see under the heading Help with home improvements). The amount of grant you get depends on your income and savings, unless the work is to meet the needs of a disabled person under 16, or in some cases, over 16 but under 19.

Getting a disabled facilities grant if you live in rented accommodation

If you rent your home and apply to your local authority for a disabled facilities grant, you'll need to get your landlord's permission before your local authority will agree to help you. However, your landlord must not refuse permission without a very good reason. If you need to make changes to your home because of your disability, your landlord should agree to this unless they have a good reason for not doing so. If your landlord doesn't agree, this could be disability discrimination and they could be breaking the law. This rule doesn't apply in some cases where the landlord lives in the same property as you.

If you need to make certain changes to your home because of your disability, your landlord might be responsible for making them. This rule doesn't apply in some cases where the landlord lives in the same property as you.

For more information about a landlord's duty to make alterations for disabled people, see Discrimination in housing.

If your home is in need of repair, your landlord might also be responsible for doing them.

For more information about a landlord's responsibility to do repairs, see Repairs in rented housing.

Home energy efficiency schemes

There are schemes and grants to help you make energy-saving improvements to your home.

You might be able to get help with the cost of things like insulation or a new boiler.

Check if you can get help making your home more energy efficient.

The rapid response adaptations programme

If you live in Wales, and are physically disabled or aged 60 or over, you might be able to get help under the rapid response adaptations programme. This is run by Care and Repair Cymru. You can get help with small-scale alterations to your home so that you can be discharged from hospital and return to live safely at home. You might also be able to get help if you're not in hospital. You can get up to £350 worth of help.

You can get various adaptations to your home under the programme, for example:-

• small ramps

• rails and hand-grips

• a covered way to a toilet

• levelling of paths

• community safety alarms

• safety measures in your home

You must be referred to the programme by a health professional. You can't apply directly yourself. To get help, you have to rent or own your home. You must usually be aged 60 or over, and/or have a physical disability, and:-

• be in hospital; or

• have recently been discharged from hospital; or

• want to carry on living independently at home

The work to your home should be finished within 15 days of the day you were referred to the programme.

You can find out if there's a rapid response adaptation programme in your area. 

Home improvement agencies

Home improvement agencies (HIAs) are not-for-profit organisations run by housing associations, local authorities and charities. They can help people who own their own homes, or who live in privately rented accommodation, and who are elderly, disabled, or on a low income to repair, maintain or adapt their home.

For example, an HIA can:

• arrange for repairs to be carried out to your home

• help you to get funding for repairs to be carried out to your home

• give you advice about a range of issues which affect your living conditions

• organise the fitting of small aids and adaptations to help you live independently in your home

• install security measures to your home such as door and window locks, door chains and viewers

You can find more information about organisations near you from Care and Repair Cymru.

Getting further help

You can contact your nearest Citizens Advice if you need further advice on home improvements.