How should the state be held to account when it funds and organises essential services—but then denies responsibility for their failure? This post examines that question through the lens of disability-related home adaptations in the UK. It explores how the legal and administrative structures surrounding the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) scheme allow local authorities to exert control while evading public law responsibility. Drawing on a real-life case, the analysis raises wider constitutional concerns about the limits of state accountability, the legal fictions that shield public bodies, and the consequences of governance frameworks that prioritise autonomy and cost-efficiency over care and justice.

When a severely disabled child needed an accessible wet room, the local council funded the adaptation through the DFG scheme. It chose the cheapest bid from a list of pre-approved contractors, managed the grant, paid the contractor directly, and then imposed a legal charge against the family’s home. When the work turned out to be substandard, the council disclaimed responsibility, arguing that the legal contract was between the family and the contractor.

This blog post uses that real-life case as its central narrative thread precisely because it captures the systemic legal and administrative shortcomings embedded in the DFG system. While the details may vary across individual experiences, this case illustrates recurring structural issues affecting many recipients of DFGs. The case has been anonymised, and identifying details withheld, to preserve the privacy of the individuals involved. It is used here with full awareness of the ethical and academic implications of narrative-based legal critique (an approach that uses individual stories to expose how legal rules operate in practice, often revealing gaps between legal ideals and lived experiences). As a property lawyer with an interest in the intersection of private and public law, I approach this case to examine how ostensibly private legal arrangements—contracts and property charges—are embedded in and shaped by public governance structures. This intersection exposes the legal fictions that obscure state responsibility in disability adaptations.

The central question driving this analysis is: how does the current legal and administrative framework surrounding DFGs reinforce institutional vulnerability, and what would it take to reallocate accountability in a way that promotes fairness and dignity for disabled individuals? My core argument is that the DFG regime relies on the legal fiction of state neutrality, masking embedded state control behind a framework of individual contracting and a nominal appearance of consumer agency. In practice, grant recipients often have little or no influence over contractor selection or the adaptation process itself, despite being treated as if they hold decision-making power. By invoking liberal values such as autonomy and cost-efficiency, the system shifts responsibility away from the public authorities and onto disabled people and their families—precisely those least equipped to manage legal risk or negotiate market failure.

This is not an isolated failure. It is a symptom of a deeper structural problem: the illusion of state neutrality in a system governed by public funds but where responsibility is outsourced. This blog post questions the values embedded in the current DFG regime—particularly liberal assumptions of autonomy, neutrality, and formal equality—and calls for constitutional and administrative reform that reflects the lived vulnerability of disabled individuals.

What Are Disability-Related Home Adaptations and Why Do They Matter?

Disability-related home adaptations are physical alterations made to domestic environments to enable disabled individuals to live with greater safety, comfort, and independence. Common modifications include wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, stairlifts, ramps, widened doorways, and adapted kitchens. These interventions are not luxuries. As noted in the 2013 guidance on Home Adaptations for Disabled People commissioned by the UK government, they are foundational to ‘independent living, privacy, confidence, and dignity’ (section 1.6).

The legal mandate for these adaptations originates in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, section 2(e), which places a duty on local authorities to assist in the provision of adaptations that promote the safety, comfort, and convenience of disabled individuals. This duty is operationalised through the DFG, a means-tested scheme governed by the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. DFGs are available across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with a national maximum of £30,000 in England (housing adaptations are a devolved matter in Scotland, where support is delivered through local authority schemes under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006). While the funding is statutory, the delivery is often delegated: local authorities assess needs, approve funding, and frequently supply— or even select—contractors.

However, as recent government reviews and committee reports make clear, the delivery of these adaptations is far from reliable. The 2018 DFG external review commissioned by the UK Government documented systemic problems with procurement: poor standardisation, inadequate oversight, and fragmented delivery across local authorities. While the legislation does not prescribe cost-efficiency as the overriding priority, this emphasis has emerged in practice—often driven by local authority budget constraints and discretionary implementation—leaving the system vulnerable to manipulation and failure.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s 2018 report, Housing and Disabled People: Britain’s Hidden Crisis, further illustrated widespread dissatisfaction with outcomes. Complaints included significant delays, poor workmanship, and inaccessible redress mechanisms. One submission described the process starkly: ‘Plans were incorrect and completion certificates were never supplied. The contractor was poor and grossly overcharged. The contractor did the work poorly. I complained and eventually fixed it myself.’

The 2024 House of Commons Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee report reinforced these findings. Four in ten disabled people reported poor experiences with the DFG system, especially regarding enforcement and contractor reliability.

These failures are not just procedural—they have profound consequences. When adaptations fall short: a) the disabled person’s basic needs may go unmet; b) public funds are wasted on ineffective interventions; c) the financial, administrative, and emotional burden shifts onto already vulnerable individuals and families; d) trust in local authorities erodes; e) and structural injustices are compounded.

In this context, the adaptation process is not a merely technical service but a manifestation of the relationship between the state and its most dependent citizens. When that relationship is governed by liberal fictions of neutrality and autonomy, it obscures the reality of dependency and institutional control. The legal frameworks surrounding DFGs must be reevaluated not only for their administrative efficacy but also for their constitutional and ethical coherence. These tensions between legal obligation, market logic, and lived experience are present from the very outset of the adaptation process—beginning with how local authorities procure services and select contractors.

Stage One: Procurement and the Lowest Bid Illusion

In the case above, the quote submitted by the winning contractor included equipment priced well below manufacturer cost. When the family raised concerns, the council accepted the contractor’s claim that a supplier discount explained the discrepancy. Later, the contractor substituted cheaper materials, citing performance issues with the originally proposed system.

This strategy is facilitated by the discretionary framework councils operate within. Section 52 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, alongside the 2008 General Consent, allows councils to impose land charges on properties where the grant exceeds £5,000, capped at £10,000. The 2018 external review of DFGs mentioned above revealed that some councils were actively incentivised to keep grants close to the £15,000 threshold which maximises repayment on resale or transfer. According to the review, in 2016/17, 48% of local authorities reported recovering charges. In some cases, the funds reclaimed were returned to the DFG account, but in others, they were absorbed into the council’s general fund—providing no direct benefit to future DFG recipients (p.52). In the case at hand, the council’s financial exposure was arguably prioritised over the quality and suitability of the adaptation.

Further, despite guidance encouraging local authorities to adopt cost control measures—such as a schedule of rates (SoR) introduced in the 2006 Good Practice Guide—the 2018 review found only one-third of councils use them (p.198). Most still rely on ad hoc quotes from local builders, leading to price inconsistencies and quality risks. A SoR allows for pre-priced, itemised adaptations with transparent benchmarking. Their underuse represents a failure to align policy with practice.

From a legal standpoint, the procurement stage undermines fairness and amplifies inequality. The council acts as a gatekeeper to the process but frames itself as a neutral funder. Disabled applicants are denied both meaningful choice and procedural protection. Consumer protection law, such as the Consumer Rights Act 2015, presupposes informed consent and bargaining power—conditions absent here. Equality law, notably Section 15 of the Equality Act 2010, is also relevant. Treatment arising from disability-related needs must be proportionate and justified. In this context, the lack of quality control or procedural safeguards fails that test.

Stage Two: Building Without Oversight

Once work commenced in the case study, doubts escalated. The family noted that some equipment specified in the quote was not delivered. Substituted materials were clearly of inferior quality. Just two months after installation, the new equipment developed faults. Despite repeated concerns raised during and after the process, the council refused to intervene.

The council’s explanation was consistent: the legal contract existed solely between the homeowner and the contractor. But this reasoning obscures the state’s active role in shaping and controlling the adaptation. The council had selected the contractor, approved the quote, paid the contractor directly, and registered a land charge against the property—yet claimed no legal responsibility for the outcome.

This exposes a troubling paradox. Councils exert control without accepting duty. In administrative law terms, this reflects a governance failure. The state is not a passive observer; it is an orchestrator of vulnerability. Martha Fineman’s vulnerability theory challenges the legal ideal of the self-sufficient subject. Disabled individuals, particularly children and their carers, depend on institutional support to achieve functional resilience. When the law treats them as autonomous parties while denying them actual control, it enacts a legal fiction.

Moreover, the current system violates principles of procedural fairness. While mechanisms such as inspections, sign-offs, and complaints procedures formally exist, they often operate in a nominal or perfunctory manner—serving more as procedural window-dressing than as meaningful safeguards. As a result, recipients are frequently left without real avenues for recourse. In the case discussed, the council’s role in managing and financing the work placed it in a de facto administrative position, yet it evaded the corresponding public law duties. While in theory these include core administrative law principles—legality, rationality, and procedural fairness—judicial review is rarely a realistic route in such cases, given the procedural complexity, financial barriers, and personal vulnerability involved. What is more pressing is the need for robust internal mechanisms: independent inspections, user-informed sign-off, and accessible complaints processes with enforcement powers.

Vulnerability theory offers an important lens to expose the limitations of these formalist legal structures. Fineman argues that vulnerability is a universal human condition. Rather than assuming a liberal legal subject as autonomous, resilient, and self-governing, she insists on recognising the inherent dependencies we all carry—dependencies that are especially visible in the lives of disabled individuals. The current DFG regime, in its adherence to autonomy and neutral facilitation, ignores the real conditions of constrained agency. In doing so, it perpetuates institutional neglect rather than promoting resilience.

Stage Three: Completion, Charges, and Disclaimers

After the contractor in our case study claimed that the work was completed—despite significant defects—the council proceeded to register a land charge against the family’s home. When the family later sell or transfer the property, they are required to repay the grant.

This repayment model raises serious equity concerns. The homeowner had no choice in contractor selection, no role in project oversight, and received substandard work. Yet they were treated as both consumer and debtor. This is doubly unfair in the context of disability-related needs.

A common assumption—frequently implied in local authority practices—is that adaptations like accessible wet rooms automatically increase a home’s market value. This is far from guaranteed. Industry guidance shows the effect depends heavily on context. For instance, a wet room added to a luxury home as an additional facility may be a selling point, but when such a feature replaces the sole bathroom in a modest family home, it can deter prospective buyers—especially families with young children who prefer traditional bathtubs. These market dynamics are often overlooked in the administration of the DFG regime, where the potential for property appreciation is used to justify financial recovery through legal charges. This approach risks penalising recipients with obligations based on hypothetical gains that may never materialise.

Further, the legal fiction at work here becomes even clearer when we consider an analogy. Imagine a borrower receives what appears to be an interest-free mortgage from a bank—but the bank chooses the property, selects the builder, and controls all payments. The house turns out to be defective, yet the borrower is still required to repay the bank. Any reasonable person would question the fairness of such an arrangement. Yet under the DFG regime, this logic is routine. Moreover, what families receive is not a loan but a grant. The imposition of a legal charge—non-consensual in practice—blurs this distinction and transforms the grant into something punitive. A grant is not a debt, and treating it as such risks imposing a disproportionately harsh burden on recipients, particularly when the quality of the adaptation is unverified or defective. If the policy goal is to prevent misuse or repeat applications, a more proportionate alternative would be to limit eligibility for subsequent grants, rather than converting the initial award into a recoverable asset.

In the context of DFGs, the power asymmetry is not merely economic but legal and procedural. Local authorities benefit from asymmetrical discretion: they can impose charges, choose contractors, approve quotations, and control payments—yet can simultaneously deny responsibility. For grant recipients, the burden is not just the defective work or the inaccessible complaints process, but the institutional message: you are subject to the state’s control when it comes to decision-making, but denied its protection when things go wrong.

Reforms: From Policy Suggestion to Legal Obligation

Reform is both necessary and feasible. Many of the key recommendations which could be implemented already exist in government documents. For example, the 2013 and 2022 DFG guidance suggest:

• Formal contracts between the applicant and contractor, with the council acting as contract administrator
• Use of TrustMark-registered contractors to guarantee minimum standards
• Post-completion inspections and user sign-off before releasing final payments
• Implementation of schedule of rates to prevent underbidding

However, these guidelines are advisory, not legally binding. In the absence of enforceable duties, local authorities retain broad discretion, which can translate into a lack of accountability when things go wrong.

One promising innovation is the Engineering Budget Quota System (EBQS). Borrowed from infrastructure procurement, EBQS introduces standardised cost quotas for common adaptation tasks. These could include modular pricing for roll-in showers, widened doorways, accessible kitchens, and grab bars. By pre-pricing these units and adjusting for regional variations, councils can ensure transparency and deter manipulation.

Beyond procurement, councils should be legally required to:

• Adopt tripartite contracts recognising their role as co-obligors
• Provide independent complaints and enforcement bodies with powers to compel remedies
• Conduct whole-project audits, tracking procurement, installation, and follow-up
• Recognise grant recipients as consumers under law, even where payment flows from public funds
• Reconsider the use of land charges, especially where quality is not independently verified

These reforms shift the legal framework from one of discretionary facilitation to mandatory accountability. They recognise the embedded dependency of disabled individuals and restore a measure of dignity and protection.

They also respond directly to Fineman’s call for ‘the responsive state’: one that sees its role as an architect of resilience, rather than remaining as a neutral facilitator of private ordering. The DFG regime has too often served as a blueprint for evasion—evasion of duty, responsibility, and redress. But as Fineman argues, the legitimacy of public institutions rests on their willingness to accept accountability where they exercise control. The state is not diminished by this recognition; it is made more just.

Conclusion: Recognition of Vulnerability and State Accountability

Disability adaptations are not simply construction projects. They are moments of intense institutional interaction between the state and some of its most vulnerable residents. Yet the current DFG regime treats these adaptations as private matters governed by market logic.

The values embedded in this model—neutrality, autonomy, and non-intervention—are not neutral at all. They operate to displace state responsibility, obscure power dynamics, and reinforce vulnerability. When a local authority selects a contractor, funds the adaptation, imposes charges on a home, and yet evades legal responsibility, it is not acting as a neutral facilitator. It is designing a system of denial.

Constitutional law must reckon with these structures. Accountability is not an administrative nicety—it is a legal necessity. A responsive state must embed legal obligations where it exercises control. The right to live safely, independently, and with dignity cannot depend on the quality of a builder’s quote or the discretion of a grant officer.

Constitutional justice demands recognition of vulnerability and state accountability—especially where the state exerts control—rather than hiding behind legal fictions.

Author’s Note
This blog post is based on my presentation at the workshop The Impact of Constitutional Frameworks on Crisis Response Capacity: A Comparative Study of the United States and South Africa, held at Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, GA, on June 26–27, 2025. I am grateful to the workshop participants for their insightful comments and feedback. I am also grateful to the blog editors for their helpful comments and editorial guidance.

This work forms part of a longer-term research project on structural vulnerability and state responsibility, with particular focus on state accountability, administrative discretion, public funding, and the lived realities of disability and dependency in social support systems. I welcome contact from scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in these themes.

Ting Xu is Professor of Law at Essex Law School, University of Essex

(Suggested citation: T. Xu, ‘The Legal Fiction of State Neutrality: Rethinking Accountability in Disability Home Adaptations’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (9th July 2025) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))