Care and Repair Elmbridge (CARE) can provide advice on the types of repair, improvement or adaptation needed in your home. We can also help you to apply for financial assistance for home repairs or improvements.
Disabled Facilities Grants
If you or a member of your household is disabled, we may be able to offer you a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) if you need to adapt your home to help you continue living there.
The type of adaptations that can be funded include:
- widening doors
- level access shower
- stair lift
- installing ramps
- providing or improving access to rooms and facilities, eg by fitting a stair-lift or putting in a downstairs bathroom
We offer two types of grants – mandatory Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) and discretionary Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs):
- Mandatory DFGs are paid to help towards the cost of adapting a home to enable a disabled person to continue living there.
- Discretionary DFGs can be offered to help disabled residents move to a more suitable home, if their present one cannot be adapted.
Applying for Disabled Facilities Grants
The first step is to contact careandrepair@elmbridge.gov.uk who will be able to advise you.
Maximum funding available
Mandatory Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) are means-tested. To find out if you will need to contribute to the costs of the work, we will ask you to complete a grant enquiry form.
The maximum grant available is £30,000 and this usually covers the cost of the most common types of adaptation, eg fitting a level-access shower or stair-lift.
For more expensive adaptations, we may be able to help you explore opportunities for top up funding.
DFGs will only pay for adaptations that we consider to be “necessary and appropriate" and “reasonable and practicable”. If you decide to carry out further works or want the adaptations provided in a different way, you will be responsible for paying the difference in costs between our recommended adaptations and the cost of your proposals.
We will not award a DFG for any works started or completed before we provide you with approval of your grant in writing.
We will pay up to £5,000 towards moving costs via a discretionary DFG, subject to funding being available and means-testing.
Repaying Disabled Facilities Grants
You may have to repay a Disabled Facilities Grant if you own the property and it is sold within ten years of the work being completed and the DFG provided was more than £5,000. We would not seek to recover more than £10,000.
Help to manage the project
Care and Repair Elmbridge (CARE) can help oversee the project from start to finish. CARE can provide free advice and information, but we do charge a fee to assist you with building works.
If the works are eligible for a council grant, then the fees can be included in the grant and would not cost you anything.
Minor adaptations
Our handyperson service can install minor adaptations, eg fitting grab rails, as well as carrying out odd jobs around the home.
More information
For more information on Disabled Facilities Grants, please contact pshousing@elmbridge.gov.uk or careandrepair@elmbridge.gov.uk.
Further information on loans and grants is available in our Private Sector Housing Financial Assistance Policy.
