Making improvements to your home
If you are a council tenant or leaseholder, you can make improvements to your home, but you will usually need our written agreement before you start. This is a condition of your tenancy or lease.
Remember: You will have to pay for the improvements and find qualified tradespeople to carry out the work.
Below are some examples of improvements you can and cannot make to your home and whether you need our permission or not. This is not the full list.
Improvements where our permission is needed
You must not begin this work until you have received our written permission. Typical works which you need permission for include, but not limited to:
Examples inside your home
- Add, move or rewire electrics
- Add to or change your heating or hot water system
- Refit a kitchen, bathroom or shower
- Fit a laminate, wood block or similar flooring
- Knock down or build walls inside your home
- Add or remove bedrooms
- Deck or convert a loft or roof space
Examples outside your home
- Build a garage, shed, greenhouse or similar building
- Put in a driveway, hard-standing or paved parking area
- Fit outside CCTV cameras or equipment
- Add fencing, a porch or decking
- Knock down or build walls outside of your home
- Take down or change the chimney
- Add a fish pond or outside taps
- Change a balcony on a flat
- Decorate or insulate the outside of your home
- Take out trees or hedges
Find out how to request permission.
Installing your own adaptation
If you are looking to add an adaptation to your home, such as a grab rail, you can ask the Single Point of Access team for help. More information on making adaptations is available.
If you would like to install your own adaptation, or remove an existing one from your home, you will need to ask for our permission.
Improvements where you do not need permission
We are happy for you to carry out minor decorating and DIY, as long as it is not gas or electrical work.
We have some useful self-help guides and videos. You must take care to avoid drilling where electrical wires might run and where sealed asbestos sheets are present. If in doubt, read more information on electrical safety or asbestos and seek advice.
Examples
- Decorating inside your home, like painting your front door or walls
- Putting up shelves or curtain rails
- Replacing a light fitting and switch in the same place as before
- Hanging wall cabinets
- Carpets or vinyl flooring
Improvements where we will not give permission
We will not allow you to carry out improvements to your home which we believe will reduce the value of your home, be unsafe or cause a nuisance to your neighbours.
Examples
- Install satellite dishes or aerials in flats
- Knock down walls in flats
- Remove banisters on stairs
- Replace fire doors with ordinary doors
- Installing satellite dishes on flats
- Remove kitchens, heating or bathrooms without replacing them
- Fit patio doors that go on to communal gardens
- Any work where a neighbour has 'given permission' to use their land
