What are Disabled Facilities Grants?
If you or someone living with you in your property is disabled then you may qualify for a disabled facilities grant (DFG),
towards the cost of providing adaptations and facilities to enable a disabled person to remain living independently in their
own home.
Who can apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant?
Any person who has a disability and requires adaptations to their property in order to remain living independently can
apply for the grant.
An applicant must either be the owner of a dwelling, or be a tenant and be able to provide the local authority the necessary
‘owners’ or ‘tenants’ certificate, confirmation from the owner that they are happy with work being undertaken within their
property is also required.
How is the grant calculated?
Although Disabled facilities grants have to be provided by the Council, you may not automatically qualify for a grant,
as we have to assess both yours and your partners incomes and savings through a means test.
The means test looks at the income and capital of the disabled person and their spouse or partner. It assesses how much they
would initially contribute to the cost of the works.
The test calculates the average weekly incomes, taking into account any savings above £6,000.00 and certain state benefits.
Any benefits, which specifically recognise a person’s disability, are ignored. These values are set against an assessment
of basic needs, which are recognised by specific premiums and allowances as set down by the Secretary of State.
If the disabled person’s resources are less than this assessment, then initially they will not need to contribute to the cost
of the works. If the disabled person is in receipt of income support or income based jobseekers allowance, then there initial
contribution towards the cost of any works will also be nil.
If the disabled person’s resources are more than the assessment, then a proportion of their income will be used to calculate
the size of the amount of funding that they could afford to finance the works. This ‘affordable loan’ is then deducted from
the cost of the works.
In the majority of applications there will be an additional amount of contribution in cases where the cost of work quoted
by the builder exceeds the cost calculated by our department or, where the cost of work exceeds the £25,000.00 maximum grant
limit.
The approved cost of the works is the amount that the Council calculate as being reasonable to be incurred, having regard
to the work being carried out. If the calculated contribution were to exceed or equal the approved cost of the works, no
grant would be offered.
How do I apply for the grant?
In the first instance contact should be made with the Occupational Therapists at Kidderminster Health Centre on 01562 820091.
They will need to undertake an assessment of your needs.
Once you have been assessed they then issue a referral to Social Services who can process the request and pass it to our department
so that we can then make an inspection of the property and send out the necessary application forms.
Further information
Should you require any further information please contact Customer Service on 01562 732928 or the Councils Private Sector
Housing Team at the following address:
Wyre Forest District Council
Planning, Health & Environment
Private Sector Housing
Duke House
Clensmore Street
Kidderminster
Worcestershire
DY10 2JX
