Accessibility Equipment near you

This is the rule most households never hear. Regulation 3 of the Care and Support (Charging and Assessment of Resources) Regulations 2014 says a local authority must not make a charge for meeting needs where the care and support provided is a service consisting of the provision of community equipment, meaning aids and minor adaptations. The same regulation fixes the boundary: an adaptation is minor if the cost of making it is £1,000 or less. It is not means-tested and it is not discretionary.

The route to it is a needs assessment from the council's adult social care service, which you can ask for directly rather than waiting for a referral. An occupational therapist looks at what you are struggling with, and what comes back is a recommendation rather than a shopping list. Equipment provided this way is usually loaned, stays the council's property, is maintained by them and goes back when it is no longer needed, which is generally an advantage rather than a catch.

Above the £1,000 line, or where the answer is building work, you are into grant territory: the Disabled Facilities Grant, its means test and its different maxima across the nations are explained in the accessibility renovations guide and are not repeated here. Note also which country you are in. Those charging regulations are made under the Care Act 2014 and are the English position; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own social care legislation, so ask your own council what its equipment threshold is before assuming the same figure applies.

HMRC's VAT Notice 701/7 sets out reliefs from VAT for disabled and older people, and section 4 lists the goods that can be zero-rated when supplied to a disabled person for their own domestic or personal use. The list is specific and it is long: electrically or mechanically adjustable beds designed for disabled people, hoists and lifters, riser-recliner chairs, commode stools and chairs, sanitary devices, chair and stair lifts designed for a wheelchair user to move between floors, wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and medical and surgical appliances.

Zero-rating is not automatic. Under section 3.6 the supplier must take a written declaration of eligibility from the customer, separate from the invoice, containing enough information to show the conditions are met. A supplier who has never heard of the declaration is a supplier who will charge you VAT, so raise it before you order rather than afterwards. The relief does not depend on any benefit and does not require anyone to be registered disabled.

There is a second, narrower relief that catches people who do not meet the disability test. Section 9 of the same notice applies a reduced rate of 5% to certain mobility aids supplied and installed in a private home for someone aged 60 or over: grab rails, ramps, stair lifts, bath lifts, built-in shower seats and walk-in baths with sealable doors. It applies to supply-and-install, and it also needs a written declaration, this time confirming age and that the home is a private residence.

A hoist is the one piece of home equipment with a genuine inspection regime behind it, and whether that regime applies turns on who operates it. Where care workers use a hoist in the course of their employment, the equipment is being used at work, and the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 apply to the employer or the person controlling it. Regulation 9(3) then requires thorough examination by a competent person at least every six months for lifting equipment used to lift persons and for lifting accessories, which includes the slings.

Where a family member does all the hoisting and nobody is at work, the statutory duty does not apply. That is a legal answer rather than a practical one. Slings wear at the stitching and the loops, hoist batteries fade, and the failure mode is a person being dropped, so the six-monthly interval is the right benchmark to adopt voluntarily. Ask the supplier to put an inspection visit in the contract and keep the reports.

Two habits do most of the rest. Match the sling to the hoist and the person rather than using whatever is to hand, because slings are not interchangeable between makes. And check the safe working load marking on both the hoist and the sling before the first lift, since the marking is the only thing that tells you the pairing is within its limits.

Most equipment needs nobody's permission because it is furniture rather than an alteration: a bath lift, a mobile hoist, a riser-recliner or a portable ramp changes nothing about the building. The line is crossed the moment something is fixed. Grab rails go into walls, ceiling track hoists go into structure, stairlift rails are screwed into treads or a wall string, and all of those are alterations to someone's property if you do not own it.

In a rented home, ask the landlord in writing and keep the reply. In a leasehold flat, the lease itself usually requires the freeholder's written consent for fixings and alterations, and the managing agent will want to know about anything touching a common part such as a communal stair. Neither conversation is usually difficult, but both are far easier before installation than after.

Listed buildings are stricter, because consent is needed for works affecting the building's special interest and that reaches inside as well as outside. The consent regime itself is covered in the renovations guides on this site. The practical point here is narrow: raise the listing with the occupational therapist at the assessment stage, because it often changes the recommendation from a fixed solution to a freestanding one.

Once the council has provided what it provides, the remaining price turns on a handful of things: whether the item is standard or made to a measurement, whether it is supply-only or supply-and-install, how much fixing is involved and into what — plasterboard, lath and plaster, or solid masonry each change the job — whether a stairlift rail is straight or curved, how far the installer travels, and whether servicing and a call-out response are included or sold separately. Two quotations for the same stairlift often differ mainly in what happens in year three.

LokalMatch handles the introduction and nothing else. Describe what the person is struggling with and what has already been recommended, once, with your postcode, and suppliers and installers covering your area can get in touch. Homeowners pay nothing to use LokalMatch; pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not do the work, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend any business that replies, so confirming VAT treatment, insurance and service arrangements is down to you.