Household improvements - new CH boiler and new double glazing including doors

www.windowsguide.co.uk/articles/green-homes-grants-windows-doors-update
CLOSES 31 MARCH 22

www.gov.uk/energy-company-obligation

Many people qualify who live in their own home. See list above.

The schemes run 10 or more years ago were very patchy in their coverage. I was a home advisor with, what was then, Age Concern and I had a number of clients who were turned down for a range of improvements, including heating and insulation, and new exterior doors to ensure their safety, even though they were on Pension Credit and had no savings at all.

I don't think it's about envy, Franbern. It's about a sense of unfairness. We all live by a form of social contract, under which we pay in when we can, and take out when we need to. When people have paid in (whether they've like it or not) but never get to take out, yet see others doing the reverse it can seem unfair, and it's human nature to see it that way, I think.

When people haven't had many advantages, but have managed to save a bit, only to then find that their savings bar them from getting things that those who haven't saved are given, it can seem like a double whammy. You wouldn't tell one child to give her sweets to her brother because he had eaten his, would you?

I am obviously unsure as to how the person the OP refers to got their assistance with home improvements. However, over twenty years ago there was a scheme to pay to carry out essential repairs on houses in order to keep them suitable for occupation. Much cheaper than building new houses.

So, back at the end of the 1990's the house I was then living in received this help. A lot of work was carried out - and no means testing was carried out. It was purely on what the property required. I had no say in who carried out this work, but was very grateful for it. We had to wait a minimum of three years before we could sell that house, if we did it earlier then we would have had to repay a part of that money.

I know other people who benefited from this (I think it was a Government) initiative.

I really do not understand why people are so envious of what other people manage to get done for their homes.

As I understand it it is ten thousand pounds maximum money (not £16,000 unless disabled), before any form of benefits kick in. An that is not just savings, - it is ALL the money that person has access to.

I remember getting free insulation and cavity wall insulation without means testing some years ago. With the current energy crisis something similar would be a godsend to many.

My ex was approached by his local council last year and was asked if he'd like a new gas boiler. As there's no gas supply to his house, he said no point. They then paid for National Grid Gas to come out, connect his house to a gas supply and then fitted a new combi boiler. All free and no checks on his savings or pensions status. I live 20 miles away and paid for new boiler, new rads, new doors and double glazed windows and loft insulation and have less than half of his financial status. It's a postcode lottery right enough.

I would rather save and have that money behind me to give me choice in my life most of the time, even if I have to run those savings down and not get state help if I am unemployed.

Doodledog
I am pretty much with you on this as I'm sure I've said before on previous threads. There is no advantage at all to have saved and been responsible with money if you lose your job or find you need financial help. Even if your savings are relatively small you have to live off them and I don't own properties or anything like that. It's unfair but nothing will change.

I do think that all savings and assets should be taken into account where grants for household improvements are given.

Many older people have a source of money for improvements in their house itself and could use equity release or lifetime interest only mortgages to take relatively small sums out of their house to pay for improvements

And then there are, as I mentioned above, those who have more than enough money for the work needed squirreled away in savings ring fenced and described as being 'for a rainy day', meanwhile the rain is pouring and coming through the roof. Generally these funds are still there when the saver has died after years living in a cold damp house with inadequate heating.

What I find appalling in OP is that savings are not taken into consideration. How is it right that an owner occupier who can afford to improve their property is given grants to do so? It wouldn’t surprise me that the house goes on the market soon after the windows and doors are replaced. There are councils who are housing families in inadequate accommodation riddled with damp and mould or pose other health and safety risks to the occupants, are they less deserving?

I remember being a bit ? when an elderly friend of ours got the council to pay half of the cost of modifications to his home.

When he died only a year or so later he left 2 houses paid for, and over £1m in cash - dh was an executor. Although we’d known he was quite comfortably off - at least he always had enough for anything he wanted - we were startled to say the least at just how much there was, since he’d always been unbelievably tight with money - as in e.g. almost invariably having ‘forgotten’ his wallet whenever it was time to pay for a meal out!

Yes, I know that there are those who can’t save, and I absolutely believe that there should be initiatives to help them. Progressive taxation, higher minimum wage, social housing with controlled rents - anything that can be done should be done.

What I am talking about though is not poverty, but about the right of people to spend their earned income as they see fit, and not to be penalised for choosing to save.

I am also uneasy about others deciding what is affordable and what isn’t, which is why I asked for clarification - I wasn’t being picky for the sake of it.

Redundant language DD saying the same thing twice.

In all the years I was a benfits Advisor/Home Visitor, I can count on one finger of one hand the people I visited who could be classed as spending rather than saving, and that was more being people who were poor money managers than people who led a reckless life of wild spending.

Most of the people I visited were just poor, lifelong poor, mainly working as agricultural labours, or on building sites and just keeping body and soul together was as much as they could manage, saving only an aspiration.

I beleive, that if you can afford it and have the money to, you should pay your own way in the world.

So do I; but many people don't, so the burden falls on those who save their money rather than spending it.

When you say 'if you can afford it, and have the money to', what do you see as the difference between those things (affording it and having the money)?

I beleive, that if you can afford it and have the money to, you should pay your own way in the world. Grants and aid should be strictly limited to those who really cannot afford it, without savings and on a low income.

When I was a Home visitor I frequently visted older people in houses desperately in need of attention but who had £20, £30,000 and more, of savings that they wouldn't touch because they were keeping them for a rainy day.

Even when I pointed out that if they spent some of the money on the repairs their house desperately needed and brought their savings down to a generous £16,000 they would qualify for Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, etc etc, they still would not do it. I would have to walk away and leave them with their problems.

I know I keep saying it, but means testing drags everyone down rather than giving a leg up. If you have saved, you usually get nothing until it has been used up, and even then, there are limits on what you can do with your own money in case you are accused of deprivation of assets.

Spend as you go, however, and you get the best of both worlds, yet it is those who, like me, speak out against the inequity of the system who are accused of selfishness and worse, not the people doing the spending. I am not, incidentally, speaking from the perspective of someone wanting to gain - I am 63, so years off pension age, and am unlikely to need social care anytime soon. I could easily spend my savings, such as they are, before I qualify for benefits, and I am very aware of the financial advantages of doing so. I won't, as I have always contributed, and believe in 'from each according to ability and to each according to need'; but I think that the system is, as it stands, horribly unfair.

It sounds as though this is adding in another postcode lottery, too, on top of the means test unfairness. Areas where councils are strapped will not be able to offer grants, whereas ones in which house prices are higher will - so yet again, people who have 'made' money from rising prices are advantaged over those who haven't, regardless of who has paid tax and NI in their working years.

I genuinely don't understand how people can think that this is a fair way of doing things, yet they get angry when anyone suggests that those who 'can afford to pay' (as they see it) should get back as much as those who have spent their income instead of saving it.

It wouldn't be something for nothing if it were tied to taxation - charged at source, so that those who earn more pay more, and equalised so that single-earner households don't pay one lot of tax and get two lots of benefits, unless there is a reason why that hasn't been possible. That would be a way of ensuring that more money came into the system, and could pay for a better life for all who have contributed.

Btw, just last year, I spent £1200 on a new boiler ?

This is all so wrong. I was under the impression, you don’t get any financial help from the LA, if you have more than £16000 in savings. And let’s face it, most of us, our age, will probably have that amount in savings…….saved for a ‘rainy day’ or for our ‘old age’, so to speak. What gets to me is that, those who have been frugal and saved a bit are penalised. The motto is spend, spend, spend. Kisngate, if you get more info, keep us posted.

I will be seeing her in a couple of weeks and get more info. Quickly checked online and it appears LAs have different criteria. It looks like she got the boiler under the Affordable Warmth grant and double glazing and doors under an Eco Grant.

Up here in the North East the income level was just £16K PA. My S-in-L looked into it for Cheshire but the criteria was below £18K and she didn’t qualify. My friend had to make a contribution of £250 or £400, depending on which boiler they picked. Free loft insulation was offered, but she later turned that down as there was too much stuff up there for her DH to clear.

Same thing for my friend. They timed applying between her DH taking early retirement and getting his DWP, so they qualified on income. Savings (they have lots) were not taken into consideration. Doesn’t seem quite right.