Grants available?

[389shell]

I'm posting this for my dear old mum. She is still living in the ramshackle family home with my youngest sister who also lives there with her 9 month old son, the house is privately owned by my mum. The house is falling down around their ears and it is in desperate need of a re-wire all through as this has never been done in 70 plus years! There are only about 3 plug sockets she can use downstairs now and she only has the use of lamps as the overhead lights don't work. She works part time around 24 hours and receives her pension, she is 64 this year. My sister is not working so will be receiving child tax credit.

 

Along with all this she has never had central heating. About 5 years ago she got storage heaters fitted with a government grant, since then her electric bills have never been the same and she has had major difficulties with them ever since, ranging from bills from £800 - £4000 per quarter. I think this maybe due to the type of meter, day and night rates and they way staff don't know how to enter the details, it was certainly the case with BG and only got sorted after I emailed the CEO, Sam Laidlaw

 

So my question is, are there any grants available to assist with the re-wire and are there any for central heating? I would have helped her out, but my family of 5 are surviving on my part time wage since my husband was made redundant.

 

Many thanks once again for pointing me in the right direction

[rebel11]

Hi 389

 

Draw up an action plan:-

 

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/On_a_low_income/DG_10018661?CID=MTB&PLA=warmfront&CRE=lowincome

 

Also your mum should be on a 'social Tarrif', thats for 'vulnerable' people.

 

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/search1/?keyword=central+heating&nation=AgeUK_en-GB

[ptol]

First question is, does you mum charge your sister rent? Your sister could claim housing benefit to cover her rent costs, and your mum would have to declare the rental income to any pension credits, but the net effect will probably be beneficial.

 

Storage heaters are an expensive way to heat a house, and only become viable if they are used on dual rate meters. they also require people to keep an eye of on the weather forecast as you will need to turn the heating up the day before a cold spell so they have time to store heat overnight on the cheaper electricity. Using the boost option to use electricity during the day for additional heating is very expensive, perhaps £4 per hour per heater.

[Surfer01]

I think we need to establish whether she does have an E7 meter or not. We have 4 storage heaters but can only afford to use two of them and those two cost us about £110 per month which includes the hot water system. We switched to E10 as the heating si betetr structured with heating from 12am until 5am, then 1pm until 4pm and again 8pm until 10pm. As it is spread over the day you have a reasonably consitent temperature. With E7 it is boiling hot in the morning but by 6pm the place is quite cool as all the heat has dissipated.

[Janie1962]

Give your local council a ring (or the appropriate one for your Mum) and ask them about Housing Renovation Grants - I know they give them for private properties for some types of work.

 

Hope this helps, and good luck!

[rebel11]

The cost of electricity to gas can be as much as 5:1, it's very crude.

[Nystagmite]

Your sister could claim housing benefit to cover her rent costs.

 

She can't. She would be expected to use her benefits / income to pay her rent. You can't claim rent for living at home with your parent(s).

[ptol]

She can't. She would be expected to use her benefits / income to pay her rent. You can't claim rent for living at home with your parent(s).

If her mum was renting the house and claiming housing benefit, There would be an expectation for the daughter to pay rent money to the mum, and the housing benefit claim would be reduced accordingly. so this seems a little surprising.

[ptol]

If her mum was renting the house and claiming housing benefit, There would be an expectation for the daughter to pay rent money to the mum, and the housing benefit claim would be reduced accordingly. so this seems a little surprising.

done some digging around. Come across the non-commercial rules.

 

I suspect you could get it allowed, if you approached the council together, and explained that the mum needed to charge rent to raise money to repair the house, and asked the question did she need to kick her daughter and granddaughter out and find a different lodger?

[ErikaPNP]

Housing benefit could not be awarded to the daughter in this situation because the Housing Benefit regulations does not permit it.

 

A person will not be treated as liable to pay rent in respect of a dwelling where his liability under the agreement is to a person who also resides in the dwelling and who is a close relative of his or of his partner. A close relative is defined in the legislation as a parent, parent-in-law, son, son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law, step-parent, step-son, step-daughter, brother, sister, or if any of the preceding persons is one member of a couple, the other member of that couple.

 

It's simply not possible as the law does not allow housing benefit to be paid in these circumstances - regardless of the reasons or that the daughter could be kicked out if she fails to pay rent.

 

The available grants would be as stated a renovation grant that some local authorities offer and the warm front grant. The WFG are not accepting any new applications until at least April as the funding has all been allocated for this financial year. I suspect though that the grant she got for the storage heaters was possibly the WFG.

 

A Community Care Grant would only help if the repairs were minor. If they are not minor, a CCG would not be an option. But there are loans that could be applied for depending on what benefits are in payment.

 

If specific circumstances apply to the family there may be other grants they can apply for. You can search for them here