Disabled Facilities Grant
If you or someone living in your property is disabled you may qualify for a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) towards the cost of adaptations and facilities in your home to enable the disabled person to continue to live there.
You may also be entitled to grant assistance to enable someone who is disabled to come and live with you.
There are two types of grant, mandatory and discretionary, depending on the nature of the works.
Mandatory Grant
If you are disabled, grants are available for essential adaptations to give you better freedom of movement into and around your home and to access essential facilities within it. This includes adaptations for children.
The types of work are:
- To make it easier to get into and out of the property by, for example, widening doors and installing external ramps.
- Ensuring the safety of the disabled person and other people living there by, for example, providing a specially adapted room in which it would be safe to leave a disabled person unattended or improved lighting to ensure better visibility.
- By providing or improving access to the bedroom, and kitchen, toilet, washbasin and bath and/or shower facilities, for example, by installing a stair lift/through floor lift or bathroom adaptations.
- To improve or provide a heating system in the home which is suitable to the needs of the disabled person.
- To adapt lighting/main door access with controls to make them easier to use.
Mandatory grants are limited to £30,000 and a local land charge on the property may be placed if the cost of the works exceeds £5000. The charge is up to £10,000 on the adapted property and is repayable back to the council if sold within 10 years from the completion of works. Mandatory grants are means tested to determine eligibility.
In addition to the above Mandatory grant, we offer a Fastrack process on those adaptations costing under £12,000. This grant does not require means testing but may have local land charge placed on the property.
Discretionary grant
We offer Discretionary grants to assist disabled/vulnerable persons. All Discretionary grants are subject to funding availability.
These are:
Relocation Grant
In appropriate cases where a person is eligible for Disabled Facilities Grant assistance but the property is unsuitable for adaptation to their specific needs, a Relocation Grant may be offered. The maximum assistance is up to £10,000. This grant will only be available to a disabled person following a decision by the council in consultation with Social Services that the existing property cannot be economically or reasonably adapted to their needs. Conditions apply.
Disabled Facilities Grant
Outside grant policy – to assist provision of adaptations to vulnerable people with critical health conditions where the customer has a contribution to pay towards the grant but they cannot afford to do so. This grant is also to assist as top up to Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grant. The maximum assistance is up to £10,000. Conditions apply.
Better Care Fund
Each year we are allocated funding from Government via the Better Care Fund, to keep residents safe and healthy in their homes. This is achieved via various funding streams made available to our residents. These include the Disabled facilities Grant, which enables private residents to have an assessment carried out to ensure their home is adapted to meet their needs, for items such but not restricted to, stair lifts and flush floor showers. Alongside this there are other support measures with various referral routes to help residents who meet the referral criteria stay safe and healthy in their own home by preventing hospital admissions and smoothing the way for a timely hospital discharge.
The core objectives of the Better Care Fund are to:
- enable people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer
- provide people with the right care, at the right place, at the right time
To achieve this local NHS services and local government are brought together to tackle pressures faced across the health and social care system and drive better outcomes for people.
For more information on the Better Care Fund objectives in Kent please refer to Kent and Medway Integrated Care System - Kent County Council
Hospital Discharge Grant
This grant is solely to provide support to any customer being discharged from hospital. Due to the many housing problems that can prevent a timely hospital discharge a specific list of works cannot be given, however all works associated with the grant must be essential to enable the customer to once again reside in their own home. The maximum assistance is up to £3,000. No requirement of charge to property.
Energy Efficiency
Top-up loan – this assistance is for a ‘top up’ fund to ensure energy efficiency measures can be installed for households meeting specific criteria under our ECO LA Flex – Statement of Intent. The measures are required to help to make homes more efficient and therefore more affordable and to prevent unnecessary episodes of ill-health and/or deaths as a result of living in a cold home. The maximum loan assistance will be £5,000 and a land charge will be placed on the property and the loan will be repayable if the property is sold within 10 years of completion of the works.
How do I apply?
To request an assessment, contact Kent County Council's Assessment and Enablement Team on 03000 416161 and ask for the Occupational Therapist Duty Officer.
An Occupational Therapist will carry out a home visit to assess your needs. The Occupational Therapist will then contact us after their initial visit and ask us to carry out a preliminary test of your resources to assess your entitlement for a grant except in the case of grants for children.
We will ask you to provide us with details of your income and savings and we will inform you of your grant entitlement and ask you to confirm whether you wish to continue with the application. Once confirmed, we will contact the Occupational Therapist and request detailed Recommendations of your needs for the adaptation works.
Once the recommendations are received, we will employ an agent (unless you otherwise specify) who will complete formal application for approval to the council, before works can commence.
For further details, view our Private Sector Housing Assistance Policy.