Private home owners in East Renfrewshire will be able to see what assistance the council can give them to keep their properties up to standard after councillors gave the go-ahead to the publication of a scheme of assistance.

The scheme will be published in April to chart important changes to the way the council can help private home owners with everything from information and advice to practical assistance, especially when common repairs are involved.

Improvement grants will no longer be payable in line with national changes, but the council will work with private home owners to reduce the number of homes failing to meet the national tolerable standard, assist owners in communal blocks to carry our essential maintenance and repairs and work with private landlords and tenants to improve standards in the private rented sector.

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The council will also have new powers to force owners who refuse to maintain their property to do so, while the council’s responsibilities to disabled people to help them stay in their homes by carrying out adaptations, will also be spelled out.

Deputy council leader Councillor Douglas Yates said: "The private sector is extremely important in East Renfrewshire where around 33,000 of our 36,000 homes are privately owned.

"Our scheme of assistance will be published in April so that all home owners are clear about what their rights and duties are as well as our obligation to them to ensure that the housing stock of the area all meets the minimum tolerable standard.

"While the bulk of our housing stock is well-maintained and extremely comfortable, we do have pockets of poverty where the householder, often an older person, has fallen behind with maintenance, and we need to meet that need as well as look after disabled residents whose homes need adaptations to allow them to continue to live in their own homes."

(GK)