Accessible Bathrooms

The VAT position, and the trap almost everybody falls into

There are two different reliefs, they have different qualifying rules, and being charged the wrong one is a live HMRC exposure for the installer as well as a cost to you.

Zero rated, 0%

Applies where the work is for a chronically sick or disabled person, in their private residence, and is necessary to suit their condition.

“Chronically sick or disabled” means a physical or mental impairment with a long term and substantial adverse effect on everyday activities, or a medically recognised chronic condition. A temporary disability such as a broken limb does not qualify.

What qualifies: providing, extending or adapting a bathroom, washroom or lavatory. Constructing a ramp. Widening an existing doorway or passage.

Two details worth knowing because they are money:

• Lost space can be restored at 0%. If converting a bathroom eats into another room, restoring that room to its original size, and only that lost space, is also zero rated.
• Preparatory and making good work is included. Where the qualifying work needs preparation and necessary restoration afterwards, those services are zero rated too.

What does not qualify, and this catches people: constructing a new doorway or passage, as opposed to widening an existing one. Central heating boilers. Replacement windows or doors. Bedrooms, dining rooms, living rooms, utility rooms, offices, kitchens and carers’ rooms.

Reduced rated, 5%

This is the one that gets missed. Certain mobility aids installed in the home of a person aged 60 or over are reduced rated at 5%, not zero rated.

The qualifying list is specific: grab rails, ramps, stair lifts, bath lifts, built in shower seats or showers containing built in shower seats, and walk in baths with sealable doors. The goods must be supplied and installed. Supply only does not qualify.

So, plainly

Disabled person, private residence, necessary to their condition: 0%. Person aged 60 or over who is not disabled, having one of the listed mobility aids supplied and fitted: 5%. Anything else: 20%.

You will need to sign a written declaration confirming eligibility. It has to be separate from, or clearly distinguishable from, the order form or invoice. There is no HMRC exemption certificate, whatever anybody tells you, so if a company says it needs one before applying the relief, it does not know the rules. Where the person cannot sign, a parent, guardian, doctor or other responsible person may sign instead.

One more: for a charity, only a washroom or lavatory can be zero rated. Not a bathroom.

What the Building Regulations actually say, and what they do not

This is the single most misstated thing on competitor pages, so here it is straight.

Approved Document M Volume 1 does not apply to adapting an existing home. Its own text says the recommendations apply to newly erected dwellings and dwellings undergoing material alteration only, and that they do not apply to extending a dwelling. The higher accessibility standards, M4(2) accessible and adaptable and M4(3) wheelchair user dwellings, only apply where a planning condition imposes them.

Volume 2 of Approved Document M, with all its detailed WC layouts and grab rail diagrams, covers buildings other than dwellings. It does not govern your bathroom.

So there is no Building Regulation dictating the seat height or the rail position in a private home adaptation. The dimensions come from the occupational therapist’s assessment of the individual, which is as it should be, because the right height for a WC depends on the person using it rather than on a table.

What is genuinely useful from Approved Document M, and we build to it as good practice: walls, ducts and boxings in a WC, bathroom or shower room should be strong enough to support grab rails, seats and other adaptations, taking loads of up to 1.5 kN per square metre. That matters because a grab rail screwed into unreinforced plasterboard will come off the wall under load, and that is exactly the moment somebody falls.

Where an overhead hoist may be needed, the structure has to carry considerably more, and that is a decision to take before the walls are closed up rather than after.

How the process usually runs

Referral to social services or occupational therapy. Screening, then an assessment, with an occupational therapist for the more complex cases. The OT determines what is necessary and appropriate and makes a formal recommendation. The DFG application goes to the local authority housing department. Means test for adults. Approval, then works.

Worth knowing: a DFG can be accessed before a formal Care Act eligibility assessment. Care Act eligibility criteria should not be applied when awarding one. People are regularly told to wait when they do not have to.

We are happy to work directly from an OT’s schedule of works, and to price against it so the council can see exactly what it is funding.