Adapting a home for easier, safer access

The bathroom comes first for many households. Replacing a bath with a level-access shower or a wet room removes the step over the bath edge, and the floor is laid to a fall so water drains away. Grab rails, a fixed shower seat, a raised or comfort-height toilet and lever taps can be part of the same job. Space matters: turning a wheelchair needs more room than most British bathrooms offer, which is why some adaptations take space from a neighbouring room.

Getting around the house often means widening doorways, removing thresholds and changing door handles and light switches to more usable positions. Getting in and out may need a ramp, a level path, a wider front door or handrails on external steps. Larger adaptations include a downstairs bedroom or bathroom, sometimes as an extension, and lifts between floors.

Age-friendly changes are often smaller: better lighting on stairs, a second banister, rails by the front door, easier taps, or moving a washing machine up to a comfortable height. Many are cheap compared with the difference they make.

An occupational therapist, arranged through your council's adult social care team or children's services, looks at what the person finds difficult at home and what would help, now and as needs change. They can suggest options a builder might not think of and can prevent an expensive adaptation that turns out not to work. The assessment is usually part of the route to a Disabled Facilities Grant.

Once the recommendations are clear, the builder turns them into drawings and a specification. Good adaptation firms are used to working from an occupational therapist's report and to talking with the council about the details.

Councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland give Disabled Facilities Grants for adaptations such as widening doors, installing ramps or grab rails, a level access shower, a stairlift or an extension for a downstairs bedroom. Owners, tenants and landlords can apply. The amount usually depends on household income and savings; grants for disabled children do not take the parents' income into account. The council must be satisfied the work is necessary and appropriate, and reasonable given the age and condition of the property.

The council must give a decision within 6 months, and the work should normally be finished within 12 months of approval. Do not start before the grant is approved, or you may get nothing. Planning permission and Building Regulations approval are applied for separately, and the council may ask for an architect or surveyor to oversee the work, whose fees the grant can cover. Foundations, a government-funded organisation, helps people apply. In Scotland, Disabled Facilities Grants are not available and councils offer their own support for adaptations.

Source: gov.uk

VAT Notice 701/7 allows certain work for a chronically sick or disabled person in their own home to be zero-rated. This includes constructing a ramp, widening an existing doorway or passage, and providing, extending or adapting a bathroom, washroom or toilet where the work is necessary because of the person's condition, including work such as plumbing, retiling and making good that is essential to it. Building a new doorway, lowering a threshold or routine redecoration later on does not qualify. The customer signs a declaration of eligibility, kept separate from the order or invoice.

For people aged 60 or over who do not qualify under the disability rules, some items are reduced-rated when supplied and installed in their home: grab rails, ramps, stairlifts, bath lifts, built-in shower seats and walk-in baths with sealable doors. General adaptations such as widening passageways are not covered by that reduced rate. A builder who does this work regularly will know how to apply the right rate.

• which adaptations are planned: bathroom, doors, thresholds, ramp, rails, extension
• whether an occupational therapist has visited and made recommendations
• whether a Disabled Facilities Grant has been applied for or approved
• whether you own the home, rent it, or are a landlord adapting it for a tenant
• house or flat, and whether the building is listed
• whether someone needs to be able to keep using the bathroom during the work
• who the builder should deal with: the occupant, a relative or the council

You describe the home and the work and confirm your phone number and email address. Adaptation firms in your area see the job without your name or contact details; one of them can buy it, and once it does the request comes off the list. The firm pays Offrano, and the service is free for you.

Before the firm receives your details, we email you its name, address and phone number, and you can withdraw consent at any time. We cannot guarantee that a firm takes up the request, and it is withdrawn after 21 days if none does. Offrano checks that buyers are registered businesses but does not assess their work. Where a grant is involved, the council may have its own requirements for contractors, so ask the council before choosing.