to question the cut in housing benefits for under occupying council tenants?

[Liketochat1]

In April next year the government are cutting housing benefits to working age council tenants who have more bedrooms than they need. They will be offered alternative accommodation of an appropriate size with no reduction in housing benefit as an alternative.
Is it fair to change the current system like this? To ask people to leave their homes and possibly the area in which they live? To expect siblings of the same gender to share a room?
Do you think it will be extended to include oaps who occupy properties which are too big for them. Should it?

Yes but there are people whose needs WON'T be met because of the new rules.

No one is being forced to move out. A lot of the tenants of the housing association I work for are delighted as they are being rehoused in brand new, relatively luxurious apartments.

It will affect pensioners of the future though, I. E you and me!

I'm quite looking forward to a one bed bungalow on day though!

Glitter, tell me to bugger off if I'm being too nosey, but do you mind explaining why Social Services have given a medical reason for needing a spare bedroom?

Personally, I think it's wrong that families living with disability aren't exempt from this.

Sockpixie - so it isn't even going to work? Great.

I don't know what the alternative is. I think the terms under which some people hold their council houses, which were agreed decades ago, and the Right To Buy, whilst both having merit as policies, have left a terrible legacy.

Local authorities should be obliged to build or buy houses of the required size. Capital for this should be released from central government to do so. Older houses, esp interwar, have very sensible proportions and are very flexible. It's a scandal how many privately-owned houses stand empty when so many vulnerable people are underhoused.

Perhaps councils should be able to force owners of empty properties to accept LA tenants on LA terms and rents, in return for the LA maintaining the property?

I have a 3 bed house in an area i'm really happy in. When DD and DS1 move out i would be happy to move into a smaller house with DS2, but i'd be pissed off after working so hard on the shit tip they call a garden, and doing up the house. I would be asking for something similar in return for what i was giving up otherwise i'd dig my heels in and pay the 14% ..

This is my family home, i know everyone locally, i don't think the scheme was very well thought out.

Oh and i am one affected because i was happy in a 2 bed house but had to move because SS said that DD needed her own room. Then whipped her out from underneath us, leaving me and DS1 rattling round in a 3 bed house.

I think this is a good idea. My aunt has a 4 bedroom council house. She is in it on her own. She doesn't get housing benefit so this won't affect her but I think it is such a waste when there is probably a family that really need it.

I don't see why children of the same sex shouldn't share is they need to. I don't understand this sudden need for all children to have their own bedrooms. If you are fortunate enough that you can own a property big enough for children to have their own bedrooms, then great. If not, then you have to get on with it, its not the end of the world.

My great uncle lives in a 4 bed house on his own. My other great uncle has a 2.5 room house (2 bedrooms and a boxroom which would only fit a bed in ). My Nanas next door neighbour also Ives in a 2.5 bed house on her own.

That's 6 spare bedrooms between 3 houses. My great uncle with the 4 bed has asked to be moved to a bungalow somewhere, but there are none around here.
I live in a 3 bedroom house (small weird shaped bedrooms so can't fit much into each) and as I have 3 girls I'm assuming my hb will drop-I've not actually heard anything official yet- which is a shame as like I say, the rooms are tiny and could no way fit 3 girls in one.

Btw, dp and I were given this house just after I turned 18 with no kids/not pg, it was just before the housing crisis started, and I am thankful all the time we have it, however in the future I would happily downgrade once the kids have left to give another family the chance.

SS didn't. Three medical professionals did though.
SS backed up the medical opinion to the local authority so we could be housed appropriately. Prior to this we were in a 2 bed as no 4 beds were available (or 3 beds for that matter).

Medical grounds are autism, ADHD (yes 'real' not my made up form) and sensory processing disorder. My children find sharing a room physically painful at times as their ability to process sensory input is so very different (one needs a lot of noise and sensory input ie weighted blankets, the other cannot stand it due to hypersensitivity). Vastly different sleeping patterns (son with ADHD is exhausted before 7pm but up between 3-4am, the other a night owl that wakes later) so they were both becoming sleep deprived and their autistic behaviours worsening because of this.

So yes, so they're not physically in pain, sleep deprived and mentally ill they need their own space.

Sorry Glitter, I must be missing something, but no matter.

I do understand why dc need their own room when they have certain things going on, my own ds has AS and various sensory issues. I think I thought you only had two children.

In theory, I think there's merit in the idea. However, there are always going to be people who unfairly fall through loopholes.

My late MIL lived alone in a spacious 3 bed council house, receiving a small amount of HB. because she only heated the living room and her bedroom, there wee huge problems with condensation and dampness in the other 2 bedrooms.

Why should a family potentially be split up into b&q accommodation whilst she rattled about that house on her own, ultimately damaging it because of her refusal to heat the whole house?

We tried our damnedest for years to persuade her to move a whole 1 street away, to a smaller house which she could have easily afforded to heat and have a very comfortable life in, but she wouldn't have it.

Through hard work and good fortune, we live in a large house with the LUXURY of spare rooms...why should a person who is being subsidised by taxpayers have that same luxury, when others have a NEED?

No... three, all autistic

Ahem b&B accommodation fecking predictive text!

I do hope the appeal in the Supreme Court is successful. Whilst this policy might have merit (I'd say even more so if pensioners were included, a fair few are overhoused) it does discriminate against those who do not have 'spare rooms' but need more space due to disability.

Like my mother shes in a war pensioners house 3 bedroom on her own she asked about a shower instead of bath I said what about families coming in, but its for ex servicemen and their families ffs I got so annoyed with her FWIW her and dad moved into the place after we'd all left home so they didn't need it either.

Disabled should be different we bought our house after converting it into a 3 bedroom was 2 bedrooms with 2 girls and autistic boy sharing converted as where we are there are very few family sized houses due to pensioners having them and refusing to downsize.

The government would spend their time a lot better putting in place a rental cap on greedy landlords who charge way over the proper rental price for poor quality housing which is turn is paid for by the council tax that everyone pays never mind forcing people from their homes. The councils could recover millions of pounds from the private rip off rental sector instead of picking on the poor who need the benefits.

late MIL rattled around in 2 rooms of her huge 3 bed house for years too, but under the new rules would still be able to...

bureni that won't happen though, given that this govt has compelled Housing Associations to raise their rents to be 70% of those vastly inflated rates!

My grandad is living alone in a 4 bed council house, he has lived there for 60 years, his children were born in the house, my grandmother died in the house. I do think its unfair that a elderly man is living alone in a 4 bed house when people are waiting for houses but i also feel it would be wrong to move him from the home he has lived in for most of his life. He is scared of losing his home so my dads partner has decided to buy the house off the council to secure him staying there. I just hope the council use the money to build more 3-4 bed houses.

We live in a 3 bed council house, we moved in 2 years ago after a long fight with the council. We were in rented housing, due to both dd's having sn's they were unable to share a bedroom and i had been sleeping on the sofa with dd2 for 3 years. we went through hell trying to prove dd2 needed her own room but eventualy we got a house. At the moment we dont claim HB but we were told that if we do need to then they will only pay us enough to cover a 2 bed house (as we have 2 dd's).

I hear what you're saying Glitter. I guess you're going to have some kind of battle on your hands to remain appropriately housed-and it's just so wrong

no it will not work. as things stand now before these changes are legally enforced (a couple of la's are already doing it) any la/ha tenant has the right to ask a la/ha to downsize them if they wish.they allready have the ability to move grants are also availible in some circumstances to help them do so. the top 3 groups who cause a massive rate of underoccuping are already choosing not to move but the changes will not impact on them at all. the groups i mentioned earlyer as being impacted by this are the group of the top 3 who will be most impacted and these groups have no access to grants helping them to move.

with this rule it will be perfectly possible for a family who is legally overcrowded to be penilised.

however most obviously where the fecking hell are all these smaller houses going to come from seen as they do not exist?

most of the examples that people who agree with the rule give in these threads as what i like to call the 'yippeeee they will have to move' reaction are exempt from the rule.

glitter as a mum of 5 asd dc's and 2 of those also having adhd what the flying fuck is 'made up adhd' as i am at a loss and not sure if i should get my knickers in a twist or not

Glitter, it works here in N.I with a cap on housing benefit being £370 PCM regardless of the size of building, this in turn has kept rental costs very low which in turn keeps the rates (council tax) low as people are not being forced to pay high rents to greedy landlords for rubbish properties.

Well, as the 'right to buy' still exists, even on brand new properties, I may well end up buying my HA home.

sockreturningpixie there are many on here who believe ADHD is an entirely made up condition....

from personal observation there is ADHD dx and 'a bit ADHD' dx by parents...

They've been lots of threads on here with real arguments over ADHD being just 'bad parenting' despite plenty of us coming back with facts on the condition.