To think this is a cruel policy, and not an actual 'tax'?

[katykuns]

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/25/spare-bedroom-tax-contradiction-impossibility?CMP=NECNETTXT766

I just think its unrealistic, and completely ignores reality that it is not just easy to drop everything and move. It is also very unfair to the disabled.

Why can they not target the damn landlords charging extortionate rents?

It is not directly affecting me, but I do claim housing benefit and I work, and life is hard. I just feel like it makes it impossible to live with a 14-25% cut of your benefit.

Its not a tax, its a benefit cut. Say it as it is ... just another attempt to make people struggling to get by struggle even more!

I agree with it as long as there are smaller places available that they can move to in the area. If not, then it's not fair.

Like the single man with the studio said - there aren't any housing association 1 bed flats, so why should he be penalised for having an extra bedroom when that's all they can offer him?

Actually let me edit that first comment.

I agree with it as long as there are smaller, cheaper places available that they can move to in the area. If not, then it's not fair.

What's the point in people moving somewhere with less bedrooms if it costs more or the same as what their current rent is?

I am a single mum with two children under ten in a three bedroom house.

Under these rules I would have been penalised, however, I am disabled and so is my daughter, and I read up in disability rights whether she should be entitled to her own room, and it said if it is inappropriate for them to share a room due to her disability then she should qualify for her own room.

I went into the council and was told it wasn't the case by a housing officer when I was threatened with homelessness just before Christmas last year.

I went through all their leaflets, including the one on the changes and how they will affect people, and basically in their own words they say that you can ask for an assessment for a further room for disabled children.

Cue a strongly worded letter, with a big list of reasons why it's unsafe and inappropriate for my daughter to share a room with her brother, questioning why I was told one thing when another was true, and implying that my recent homelessness threat was down to incompetence of staff due to not being informed of this as a measure to put into place to help stave off arrears and continue to be housed. They have a duty of care to help prevent the homelessness in the first place, not just give you somewhere to stay afterwards.

The awarded me three bedroom allowance straight away, adding in some guff about it being past the thirteen month deadline for appealing, but taking it as a special case and allowing it anyway, like they were doing me a favour.

My next step is a strongly worded letter about not being on the housing list despite needing fully adapted property for myself and my daughter, and this little gem is going to be included in there as a mention of potential discrimination against disability, or at the very least a lack of care for their disabled tenants. Hopefully then I'll be able to have a safe house for my daughter.

It probably doesn't make financial sense Marius, but at least a house has been made available for a family that needs it.

'not moving/decoration costs plus a grand incentive. He already had choice of area/house and they waited for a house to come up where he wanted, why seven grand too.'

You are not compensated for downsizing in many councils.

What custardo and expat have been saying. FWIW I don't recieve HB, but I am crammed into a small house without a spare room but I do not agree with these plans.

Moving is disruptive to families, changing schools, friends etc. To play devils advocate at least elderly people don't have to change a school if they move.

There are too many early old-age people rattling about in big houses, but as I'm a nice person I know they can't be chucked out to move a family in.

How may houses does this country need building? Someone needs to crack on with it.

This policy is not to save money, because it won't. They know that. It is a purposefully socially divisive tactic driven by the ideology that poor people should not, ever, have settled lives with the security of having a home.

The whole point of this is to show the poor that they should never get too comfortable, because if you are needy you can be expected live in a perpetual state of "what are they going to do to us next?"

The latest attack on the poor from this government is merely the latest in a long term goal of making sure that the poorest and least powerful in this country are even more anxious ,feel even more that they have no rights, and create a deepened sense of fear and insecurity.

The divisive part is that the people who feel they are on the rung above, the almost-poor, who don't have social housing or housing benefit, )and who are also struggling) are being campaigned by the right wing media to support these cuts because they are scared too.

At the same time the rich pay less tax and corporations pay no tax at all,while we at the bottom turn on each other like half starved dogs ripping each other to bits over scraps.
It's quite clever really. Evil, but clever.

Bravo, IfNot. I couldn't agree more. This is yet another exercise in Wag-the-Dog bullshit by a government bent on screwing everyone but the truly rich.

I dont follow hugely the shake ups or understand the way the government works but i can understand the sentiment to what you just said because we are one of those people who are thinking what will it be next. Which i suppose people dont expect us to be as dp works full time but he does so for a low wage.

But a lot of people are in desperate need of housing. And there is no point saying build more houses because that is not going to solve the problem for a very long time. I can't think why more houses weren't built by Labour instead of giving the huge subsidies to private landlords. But maybe they felt it was cheaper doing that than being responsible for maintaining even more council owned property.

I think it is fair that people should have to move to smaller properties if they are being subsidised and are in a bigger property than they need. But of course the Council should use discretion for special cases.

So true IfNot, this government won't be happy until we are all on the streets begging for food.
Evil

'But a lot of people are in desperate need of housing. And there is no point saying build more houses because that is not going to solve the problem for a very long time. I can't think why more houses weren't built by Labour instead of giving the huge subsidies to private landlords. But maybe they felt it was cheaper doing that than being responsible for maintaining even more council owned property.

I think it is fair that people should have to move to smaller properties if they are being subsidised and are in a bigger property than they need. But of course the Council should use discretion for special cases.'

And again, the largest percentage of under-occupiers are these so-called pensioners, actually this policy does not apply to anyone age 61+, hardly 'old'. They are exempt from this policy.

And this policy doesn't force anyone to do anything, it's a reduction in HB, same as found in the private sector. So, on balance, many are going nowhere because there is nowhere for them to go. So they will stay put and suck up the reduction and be even poorer.

And the over 61s will probably stay put, too.

The private sector needs massive revision as fewer and fewer people will be able to buy their own home and, when interest rates have to rise if the economy goes into triple dip and inflation gets goin, more people will be repossessed, leaving them with shite credit, which means many won't be able to find a private landlord to take them.

This is putting the cart before the horse!

But if they're in a bigger property than (the government now says) they need, Vivienne, how did they get into it? Unless they had a squadron of children living at home, who've all now left, then the property was either substandard and cheap - like mine - or it was deemed appropriate to their needs before the rules changed.

Bear in mind this isn't about cost - that bombshell will hit in 2015. It's wholly about rooms. Maybe you've got two teenagers in two minimum-size bedrooms. The government will take money off you because they don't share.

Would you uproot your life and move - quite possibly away from your job, schools, friends and so on - just because the government changed its mind about how many bedrooms you should have?

Thats my problem with it garlic, my stepdaughter cannot share with her brother or my ds (who share anyway) due to her age and the fact shes female. this is a rule set by the HA that we live in. Yet according to the new rules she doesnt need a bedroom. I dont see how that works. If the room was a spare room then fair enough but it isnt. Oh and even if i wasnt in SH i would still think that this "tax" is ridiculous. It will do nothing to help with the housing crisis due to oaps being exempt and the fact that smaller housing isnt available even to those who are willing so its just a cut. No two ways about it.

And it's not even about people with children. Couples with two beds, often put in them because there were no one-beds available, will be subject to this, even if perhaps they have already downsized due to children leaving home.

The ideology behind it all is the same at Thatcher's: privatisation. Move more to the private sector. To line the pockets of BTL landlords. The trouble is the eejits behind this are too clueless to realise they haven't put in place the ability to make that happen, because so many private LL's can't or won't take people in receipt of any housing benefit and can specify no children. And that's not even touching on the short-assured tenancy joke.

So, let's just say you're Mr and Mrs John Doe with two children, a boy and a girl under ten. Mr Doe got made redundant last year and Mrs Doe is on a zero-hours contract with unstable hours. Their private sector landlord decided not to renew their contract, as they needed HB, and so they had to go through the formal eviction process before council allocated them a 3-bed flat to keep them out of expensive temp accommodation.

Now they will need to stump up £20/week for that 'extra' bedroom. And they will likely do it because finding a private sector LL who will take their kids and their HB and their eviction status is nigh on impossible and, believe it or not, a lot of people do not have a guarantor. Oh, they don't have first months rent or deposit and don't live in a council with a bond scheme.

So what do you think they will do?

And now that they are down £20/week, best of luck saving for that deposit and first months' rent, too!

Just trawl the property boards here and you will see the barriers to getting a private let if you are on any sort of HB, not to mention if you have children.

raises hand hey expat i think they will fill the other room with a new baby and stay where they are.

not ideal but i bet a lot of people are thinking it!

I live on my own. I have a one-bedroomed flat but it's my own not HA.

For some people, this proposal is patently unfair.

For some people, it's about time they did stop clogging up houses that could be freed for others who DO need a bigger house.

I know plenty of HA tenants who are in their 50s, have 4 bedrooms from when they had kids, the kids are now gone but they still have that 4-bedroomed house. One couple I know were kicking off hugely about this proposal on the basis that "when our kids come to visit, they need somewhere to sleep". Bearing in mind they may come for two or three weekends a year, the answer is either a B&B or do what I do - get two decent sofa beds and they can sleep in the lounge!

It does make me laugh when people say oh well you should save and get out of Social housing like its the easiest thing in the world to save between 1000 and 2000 pound for deposits,rent and moving costs without even factoring in the rise in rent

And finding that landlord who can't wait to get people on HB, subject to caps, with children into their abode.

I feel sorry for children who live between two homes. Now along with all the usual step family politics which are well documented they are now going to feel as welcome as boil on the bum at their second home in families affected by this because they will either be costing the second household dearly for the 'luxury' of having their own room at daddys (or mummys) house which could well cause resentment from a second partner or the 'second' home will have to downsize meaning whenever the child or children stays there everybody will have to squash up or they will have to sleep on a temporary bed of sorts, which will do little to make them feel 'at home'.
Wont do much good for stepparent/stepchild relations whatsoever as if an other issue is needed in this relationship.