Housing Executive grants — the five ways to get your home fixed

These are separate from the Affordable Warmth Scheme, which is about heat rather than structure. Three of the five are means tested, but not in the way you would expect: instead of a simple income cut-off, the Housing Executive works out a loan it thinks you could afford and takes that off the grant.

Disabled Facilities Grant — the referral route people get wrong

This is the grant that adapts a home so somebody can live in it safely — level access, a downstairs toilet, a wet room, widened doorways, a stairlift.

And here is the sentence worth reading twice: "You cannot apply directly to the Housing Executive for a Disabled Facilities Grant." Ringing the grants office first gets you nowhere.

"We can provide a Disabled Facilities Grant to adapt the home of a disabled person. A health trust occupational therapist must recommend the work." So the first call is to your local Health and Social Care Trust occupational therapy referral service. Your GP, social worker or any health professional involved in your care can point you at it.

The occupational therapist assesses you at home, and if adaptations are needed they refer you on. Only then does a grants case open, with a case officer and a technical officer assigned to it.

The Test of Resources, and why it is not a simple income limit

"If you apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant, Renovation Grant or Replacement Grant, you will usually be means tested." The Housing Executive calls this the Test of Resources, and it does not work like most means tests.

If your income is below what the government reckons your household needs, the grant meets the approved cost of the work, up to the maximum for that grant.

If your income is above it, they calculate the gap, decide what size loan you could afford on that, and then: "The total amount of grant will then be the 'approved cost' of the work less the amount you can afford to borrow." You are not made to take the loan. The grant is simply reduced as though you had.

It is not income alone. Savings, pensions, benefits, the number of children, whether you have a partner, disability and age all feed in.

• The exemption worth knowing. "If the adaptation is for a child and you receive Child Benefit for that child, we do not normally carry out a Test of Resources." For families adapting a home around a disabled child, that removes the means test entirely.
• Even where the test says no contribution is due, you may still end up paying something towards getting the work completed.
• If your calculated contribution is more than the work would cost, no grant is available at all.

The other four grants

The Disabled Facilities Grant gets the attention, but four more exist and each has a narrow gate.

• Renovation Grant. "The Renovation Grant is for homes that have been inspected and found to be unfit to live in. The property must be your main or only home." Unfit is a formal finding, not an opinion about the state of the place.
• Replacement Grant. "A Replacement Grant is only available to those whose home is in a rural area, is unfit to live in and where repair is not an option." Rural, unfit, and beyond repair — all three.
• Repair Grant. "This grant can help landlords where a council has issued a statutory notice for repairs on their property." This one is for landlords, not tenants.
• Home Repair Assistance Grant. "The Home Repair Assistance Grant is for small-scale repair work and improvements." In practice it is now awarded only in exceptional circumstances, specifically where "the grant is necessary to complete a Disabled Facilities Grant".

Four things that go wrong

None of these are obscure rules. They are the ordinary ways a grant gets delayed or lost.

• Starting early. "Please remember do not start any work on your home until you have received written approval from the Housing Executive, as this could affect your grant." Same rule as Affordable Warmth, same consequence.
• Missing a deadline for paperwork. "If you do not return it, or do not contact us, we may close your case, and you may need a new occupational therapist recommendation to open a new application." You would be back at the start, waiting on another assessment.
• Expecting decoration to be covered. "There is no grant aid for redecoration". Budget for making good afterwards.
• Paying architect and building control fees and assuming they are lost. They are not: "Once work has started, we can reimburse these fees with the first interim payment."

How to apply for a Disabled Facilities Grant

It starts with an occupational therapist from your local health trust, who refers you to the Housing Executive.

Have these ready:

• Proof you own or rent your home
• Details of your household income and family
• Plans and estimates from your builder

Time limit: Once your grant is approved, you have six months to start the work and twelve months to finish it.

Common questions

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