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  3. A guide to rates
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Disabled Person's Allowance

Some ratepayers may be able to get a 25 per cent discount in their rates if they’ve suitably changed a property to meet the needs of an adult or child with permanent disabilities who lives in the household.

Qualifying for Disabled Person's Allowance

Having a disability does not automatically entitle you to a decrease in your rates. This allowance is not means tested. To apply, you don't need to provide information about your income and savings.

The allowance is 25 per cent discount in rates for any household where:

  • a person with a disability lives
  • the property has been adapted internally or has additional facilities added to suit the disabled person's needs

There must be a clear link between how the property has been adapted and the person's disability.

Criteria for adaptations

The property must be adapted to meet the needs of a person with a disability who lives in your home. Types of adaptations that qualify are:

  • a room, other than a kitchen, bathroom or toilet, which is wholly used by the person with a disability for treatment or therapy
  • an extra kitchen for the person with a disability
  • an extra toilet for the person with a disability (including an ensuite)
  • an extra bathroom (including extra toilets and an ensuite)
  • enough floor space to use a wheelchair easily inside the property (wheelchairs for outdoor use only are excluded)

Each of these features must be essential or of major importance to the well-being of the disabled person. Rearranging rooms is unlikely to make your home eligible for lower rates, for example, having a bedroom on the ground floor, rather than the first floor. 

How to apply

To apply for Disabled Person's Allowance (DPA), the person who pays rates on the property must send an application form. 

  • Disabled Person's Allowance application form

You can edit this form. This allows you to save the document to your desktop, complete the form and send as an email attachment to LPS.

You can also ask Land & Property Services (LPS) for a form:

  • telephone: 0300 200 7801 
  • text relay: 18001 0300 200 7801
  • email: applicationbased.raterelief@finance-ni.gov.uk
  • by writing to LPS
  • contact the DPA team online
Land & Property Services
Disabled Person's Allowance
Lanyon Plaza
7 Lanyon Place
Town Parks
Belfast
BT1 3LP

Information for the application form

When applying for DPA, you need to include information about: 

  • the person's disability along with any supporting medical evidence
  • adaptions made to your home to accommodate the disabled person's needs

LPS will also ask the person with a disability for permission to contact their GP or health professional if necessary.

Home visit

More information to support your application may be needed.  A member of the Disabled Person's Allowance team may visit your property or ask you to provide evidence of how it has been adapted. 

If you would like an interpreter to be present during a visit, you can ask for this when you apply. 

Due to Covid restrictions house visits cannot currently be completed. While this delay will not affect the start date of your application should it be successful, it is important to continue to pay your rates while awaiting an assessment.

Paying your rates

If you apply for help, you must still pay your rates bill while LPS assesses your application. If your application is successful, LPS will refund the amount you have overpaid or credit the amount due to your account.

If you want  more information about help to pay your rates, contact LPS:

  • email: outreach.uptake@finance-ni.gov.uk
  • Getting a rates refund

Benefits calculator

You can use the online calculator to check other benefits or allowances you could receive. 

  • Benefits calculator

More useful links

  • Lone Pensioner Allowance
  • Rate Rebate Scheme for people getting Universal Credit
  • Unclaimed benefits? Make the call
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Help paying your rates

  • Appeal a decision about Housing Benefit and Rate Relief
  • Apply for Housing Benefit and Rate Relief as a homeowner
  • Change of circumstances and suitable evidence
  • Complaining to Land & Property Services
  • Disabled Person's Allowance
  • Domestic rate poundages
  • Help with rates for pensioners
  • How much Housing Benefit and Rate Relief a homeowner can get
  • Lone Pensioner Allowance
  • People on a low income
  • Rate Rebate Scheme for people on Universal Credit
  • Rates Housing Benefit and Rate Relief

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Comments or queries about angling can be emailed to anglingcorrespondence@daera-ni.gov.uk 

If you have a comment or query about benefits, you will need to contact the government department or agency which handles that benefit.  Contacts for common benefits are listed below.

Carer's Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912
Email 
dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

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Call 0800 587 2750 
Email 
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Disability Living Allowance

Call 0800 587 0912 
Email dcs.incomingpostteamdhc2@nissa.gsi.gov.uk

Employment and Support Allowance

Call 0800 587 1377

Jobseeker’s Allowance

Contact your local Jobs & Benefits office

Personal Independence Payment

Call 0800 587 0932

If your query is about another benefit, select ‘Other’ from the drop-down menu above.

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If you wish to report a problem with a road or street you can do so online in this section.

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