This information is specifically written to provide information and advice to owner occupiers who have been assessed by an Occupational Therapist (OT) for the provision of major works at their property or when the applicants are considering undertaking a major scheme or extension incorporating the adaptations at their home themselves. This information can be read in conjunction with the “Guide to Disabled Facilities Grants – The Process Explained” web pages or the down loadable Agency booklet (This is still in production and will be available shortly. Please send us your contact details and we will post or email you a copy when it is available). The process explained gives basic information about applying for a grant, the delivery process and eligible works.
It is important that you understand the roles of Leeds City Council’s Occupational Therapists and the Adaptations Agency (Agency) in the provision of any grant application or request for the Council’s Home Improvement Assistance Loan (HIA) towards the cost of the eligible works.
The detailed information below is intended to give you relevant information so you can make informed choices on how you wish to proceed with a major adaptation scheme at your home. If you have any further queries regarding more detail on the topics covered, please refer to the Useful Contacts page.
Occupational Therapists
Adaptation Agency
Customer Support Officers and Means Testing
Full Agency Service Process
Applicant’s Preferred Scheme
Home Improvement Assistance Loans
Fees Matrix
Occupational therapists
Following a request for adaptations, an Occupational Therapist (OT) will visit a potential applicant to assess an individual’s ability to access his/her home and use the services and facilities within his/her home. Assessments that are made for adaptations using disabled facilities grants (DFG) are governed by mandatory criteria set down in legislation. (Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996).
It is not possible for the OT to recommend works that fall outside these criteria as they are ineligible for DFG or the provision of an HIA loan.
The OT will ensure that the works are both necessary and appropriate to meet your medical needs and fall within the Government’s criteria. Applicants who have queries or questions concerning the type and nature of adaptations proposed by the OT should take these up directly with them for further discussions. If you are the disabled applicant and feel that at any stage, following your initial OT assessment, that your needs have altered, it is important that you contact your OT directly as a further assessment may be necessary.
For more complex applications the OT may decide to initiate a “Housing Options” Appraisal. This joint meeting will bring together all the relevant professionals with you (and your family, carers or representatives) to discuss in detail the various options available.
These appraisals are formally structured and have a timetable of actions to ensure that fully informed decisions are made to take the application to a satisfactory conclusion.
In the majority of cases the OT will send his/her referral for adaptations directly to the Agency to initiate a Disabled Facility Grant for the works that they have proposed.
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Adaptation Agency
It is the Agency’s role to process the OT’s referral and assist you in making an application for a Disabled Facilities Grant.
The surveyors brief is to provide the requested adaptations within the existing footprint of the property whenever possible. A scheme to provide ground floor facilities can often incorporate the conversion of second reception rooms, storage areas, circulation areas and subdividing existing rooms where possible. The decision to build an extension is only made when it is not possible to provide the required facilities within the existing dwelling. It is very important that the Agency follows approved policies and guidelines in every case to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and equitably and so that the budget is spent in a manner that ensures it helps support as many applications as possible.
In designing eligible schemes, the Agency has a duty to follow set space standards (dependant on the level of care for the disabled user) for existing and proposed rooms as laid down in the guidance. After many years of processing grant applications, the Agency are aware that the mandatory schemes offered by the Council can sometimes fall short of the expectations you may have for your home. Accordingly, the Agency is more than happy to accept an “applicant’s preferred scheme”. For those applicants who wish to appeal the Council’s decision on mandatory works, there is an Appeal Panel which meets to make judgments in those cases. Please see the Complaints, Compliments and Comments page.
At this point you have 4 choices on how you may wish to proceed
1) Full Agency Service The application is handled fully by the Agency. We carry out all the stages of the grant process and arrange for the work to be carried out to a satisfactory completion by our contractors on your behalf.
The Council would encourage you to use the full service as the Agency is specifically set up to process DFGs using our own carefully selected specialist contractors which can remove a lot of the stress and worry of organising grant works yourself. The Agency does charge a fee for its services (see Fees matrix ) however if the cost of the scheme is under £30,000, the fee is taken directly out of the grant and will have no financial impact on you whatsoever.
2) Partial Agency Service The Agency carries out a survey and produces schedules and/or drawings for the eligible works. You must then contact at least 2 contractors to obtain quotes and submit them to the Agency for assessment. You will also be responsible for obtaining any planning approvals and/or building conditions or consents that are required. When the scheme is approved, Agency surveyors will carry out a final inspection when works have been completed. There is a reduced fee charged by the Agency for this service (see Fees matrix ).
3) No Agency Service The Agency only carries out its statutory duties of means testing, approving a submitted satisfactory scheme and carrying out a final inspection of the completed works. Your submitted application must include completed application paperwork, all scheme design details as necessary, relevant quotes and necessary planning approvals and/or building conditions or consents. You will need to co-ordinate your contractors and provide site supervision of the scheme as works progress.
While this route does not attract a fee from the Agency, you should be aware that it is not advisable unless you have or are able to access the required planning and building knowledge and relevant experience.
4) Care and Repair (Leeds) Ltd - Applications for children only.
DFG Applications made on behalf of children are assessed by OTs in the Children’s Team within the Children’s Services Department. When larger schemes are proposed for children, the OT will offer the services of Care and Repair to act as their agent to support families through the DFG process from beginning to end. This is part of an approved “service level agreement” between the Adaptations Agency and Care and Repair.
Care and Repair are very experienced with dealing with these cases and can offer applicants a full service that includes drawing plans, obtaining all formal consents and arranging for its Contractors to carry out the scheme through to completion.
While the services of Care and Repair will be discussed with the applicants for children’s cases, this does not preclude applicants from opting for one of the options 1 to 3 above. In options 2 and 3, the applicants can use their own private architects and builders.
Applicants choosing to use Care and Repair will be charged a fee by them (see Fees matrix ) but will not be charged by the Agency as it will only discharge its statutory functions.
Applications for children can often be complex with a number of professionals involved with the case. It is likely that a high number of these cases would be referred through a “Housing Options” Appraisal so the case can be thoroughly researched and discussed before agreement can be reached on the most appropriate course of action.
For further details on Care and Repair’s full range of services please contact them directly. (See the Useful Contacts page). If you choose to use Care and Repair, the OT’s referral will pass through the Agency for administrative procedures and directly onto Care and Repair to process.
If you choose not to use Care and Repair your referral will be sent directly onto the Agency for processing.
Important. Please be aware that applications on behalf of children (under 19 years old) are exempt from means testing.
If you wish to follow options 2 , 3 or 4 above you should inform the Customer Support Officer at the earliest opportunity so the appropriate advice can be given.
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Customer Support Officers and Means Testing
Every OT referral to the Agency will initiate a home visit from one of the Agency’s Customer Support Officers (except children’s applications that are exempt from means testing). This visit is to support you in completing application paperwork and to carry out the prescribed statutory means test. Customer Support Officers (CSO) are specifically employed to give you help and advice and can answer queries and questions at any stage of the grant process.
You should be aware that Leeds City Council has no control over the means testing procedure and CSOs are following procedures laid down in Government legislation. While CSOs will be able to give more detailed information on how the means test mechanism works, they are unable to alter the amount of contribution identified by this assessment.
Your means test contribution may vary from a “nil contribution” to any amount depending on your own personal financial circumstances. If you have a contribution you will be contacted prior to the commencement of works on site and requested to pay this money to the Council. The Agency will release your contribution and the grant payment directly to the contractor on the satisfactory completion of the works.
There will be occasions when a means test indicates that a contribution is larger than the potential cost of the works. In these cases, clearly there isn’t any grant available and an application would be cancelled. However, even though there is no grant available, you may still choose to use the Agency to organise the works for you through to completion. You should be aware that the Agency will charge its full fee for this service and the work at your property will be programmed with our contractors but will not receive prioritisation over other schemes being handled by the Agency at that time.
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Full Agency Service Process
The vast majority of applicants for DFGs opt for the full service and allow the Agency to organise every step of the grant.
Following completion of the means testing process each case is referred through to an Agency surveyor for a home inspection. The surveyor will survey your home and assess the suitability of the property to be adapted for the proposed works.
In assessing how the adaptations can be installed in your home, the surveyor will be adhering closely to approved Council policy and Government guidance to aid him in his decisions.
When the scheme has been agreed, the Agency will approach a number of its approved contractors to provide quotes for the works. The Agency’s contractors will have plans drawn up and obtain planning permission and building control approval when appropriate.
Following receipt of the quotes and any consents, the scheme is formally approved and the contractors will timetable the works for commencement. Officers make progress visits on site, as and when necessary, and visit on completion to pass off the works.
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Applicant’s Preferred Scheme
Applicants often make the decision that they would like to carry out an alternative scheme either by expanding on the Council’s proposed scheme or to include the OT’s proposed adaptations as part of a much larger development project at the dwelling.
In these circumstances the Agency is able to pay the reasonable costs for the adaptations referred by the OT on the satisfactory completion of the applicant’s alternative scheme.
For a preferred scheme, it is up to you to organise the design of the scheme and drive the whole project through to completion. Your first step should be to obtain detailed plans of your scheme and then forward them to the Agency for approval by ourselves and the OT. The proposals for your scheme must provide facilities that will be equal to or better than the OT’s recommendations. For these preferred schemes you will either be charged for a “partial agency service” fee or “no agency service” fee depending on the role of our surveyors with the progression of your application (see Fees matrix ).
On request, our Agency surveyor will assess the cost of the Council’s eligible works and indicate the financial sum that can be paid towards your scheme on its satisfactory completion.
On approval of your scheme by the Agency, you should submit quotes for the work along with a copy of any stamped and formally approved drawings by planning or building control. On submission of these documents the Agency is then able to send you a grant approval letter. Only once this has been received works may begin on site.
Important. Applicants should be aware that the Council cannot pay grant aid towards any work that has been started on site before the scheme has been formally approved.
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Home Improvement Assistance Loans (HIA)
The funding of a large scheme for adaptations can be a complicated and expensive affair. Accordingly, the Council has introduced an HIA loan to provide you with the means of raising finance over and above the grant to ensure that much needed adaptations can go ahead.
HIA loans are available to owner occupiers towards the cost of eligible works in their home. The maximum Disabled Facilities Grant is £30,000 and larger schemes and extensions can often cost considerably more than this. The HIA loan is placed as a charge on your property at the Land Registry and is borrowed against the equity that you have in your property. The Council currently allows you to borrow up to 30% of the free equity in your home towards eligible DFG works. The figure is set at 30% at the present but this could vary with changes in the Council’s policy in the future.
Some relevant facts about HIA
1) if you borrow up to the full 30% of equity in your home, a Loan Support Grant becomes available for eligible works up to a maximum of £25,000.
2) the minimum amount that can be borrowed is £2,000.
3) an HIA loan may also be available to help you pay some of your means tested contribution as well as scheme costs that exceed £30,000 grant limit.
4) the loan is placed as a charge on your property and only becomes payable when the dwelling is sold (or the deeds are transferred to someone else). There are no monthly repayments.
5) the Council fees (see Fees matrix ) for setting up the loan are added to the loan and recovered when the property is sold. Therefore there are no financial implications regarding the loan until the property is sold or transferred.
6) when you take out the loan the Council will have your property formally valued so the loan can be calculated as a percentage of your property value. When the property is sold the Council will calculate your repayment in two ways:
- the loan as a percentage of the value of your dwelling when it is taken out. Example: if the Council loaned you £10,000 and your property was worth £100,000 (i.e. 10% of the property value), the Council would take back 10% of the house value when you sold it.
and
- the loan plus interest. Interest is charged at the Local Government variable interest rate (set by the Government)
The council would then charge you the lesser of these two loan calculations.
If your property has risen significantly in value over a period of time, it may then be that the loan with interest will be the lesser figure. However, if your property price has not risen significantly, it may be that the loan linked to value of your property is the lesser. Accordingly with the “percentage” calculation, if the property actually dropped in value you would end up paying less loan back than you actually borrowed.
Clearly the decision to take out a loan as a charge on a property is a major decision that you may wish to discuss with your family and/or friends. The council would encourage you to do this and to take independent financial advice to help you make a decision. The cost of any receipted financial advice can be added to the loan.
For more detail on HIA loans please contact the HIA team directly.
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Fees Matrix
The information below gives the cost of fees for the Adaptations Agency and Care and Repairs services that are available for processing your DFG’s. Please be aware that the Agency only uses Care and Repair for children’s applications for large schemes.
Adaptations Agency
Full Agency Service on works under £10,000 - 15% up to min £200
Full Agency Service on works over £10,000 - 10%
min £1500
max £2,727.27
Partial Agency Service (includes applicant’s preferred schemes) - 6%
max £1698.12
min £176.25
No Agency Service - nil
Care and Repair
1. First Visit Free
2. Draw up Plans of existing house (on Auto-Cad Format) £500
3. Draw up Plans of OT’s proposals and obtain statutory approvals £1000
4. Produce schedule of works, obtain tenders, submit scheme for approval and make final inspection visit £1250
5. On site supervision £1250
6. Full Service which includes 2, 3, 4 and 5 above £4000
Applicants should be aware that Care and Repair offer a number of variations on these services with alternative prices accordingly.
Please contact Care and Repair directly for further discussions on the services they can offer. See Useful Contacts web page
The set up fee below is for applicants that apply for an HIA loan to raise finances to pay for eligible schemes that cost more than the maximum DFG grant or contribute towards paying an applicant’s means tested contribution payment.
HIA loan Set fee of £400 + VAT = £470.00