To think that if your answer to complaining about Bedroom Tax is "get a smaller house", you are a bit thick?

[MarmaladeTwatkins]

Where IS this glut of smaller properties, just waiting to be filled by people being stung by the bedroom tax?

TWICE today I have heard supposedly intelligent people say "Well if they don't want to pay the bedroom tax, they need to move to a smaller house."

Fucking depressing. I think it earmarks you as being a bit hard of thinking if that is your solution. :(

What about people who rent privately. Where do they fit in to all this. Will they get less HB if they are deemed to have extra bedrooms. I think they get a very poor deal with these six monthly contracts.

MaryKatherine

Your friends (the ones who you think should have been helped) would have got exactly the help there circumstances entitled them to. This would usually be contribution based Jsa plus any CTC and HB there personal household income made them entitled to.

Just the same as every other person in the uk including those whose household income means they qualify for help.

Chances are they referred to the situation as getting no help at all because its a nasty shock just how little benefits actually are when you are used to a reasonable wage.

treacle more social housing tenants are in work than not and huge amounts of them recive no benefits at all. So no everybody you hear talking about home swopping is not on benefits.

Oh and if your wage is to high to recive any help then sorry but its not low enough that's how means tested benefits work.

The figures for this are just so so miniscule in comparison to all the other high earners shafting the system and corporations that it makes my blood boil. It is purely to achieve what is happening here in this thread. Division amongst those who really should be sticking together like glue

CorrineFoxworth it is not illegal to rent a property to a family member as long as it is a proper tenancy agreement. Doesn''t matter if it is his step daughter, daughter, brother or mother. If the have a right to hb and a tenancy agreement then no rule or law has been broken.

Vivienne, for private tenents there is the Local Housing allowance, doesn't go on bedrooms exactly but gives a limit for how much HB you will recieve based on local rents for different sized properties. If you have a three bed house with the same rent as is usual for a two bed in that area, no penalty. I believe.

Correct, Plot. Private renters fall under LHA caps, regardless of number of bedrooms. That is where they fit into this.

Thanks PlotTwist. I wasn't sure if the same rules were going to be applied.

To people complaining about landlords getting housing benefit money to pay for their houses, Here's an idea, stop all housing benefit payments to private landlords. the tenants will inevitably get evicted due to non payment of rent and we have an even bigger housing crisis than we already have and lots of families trying to get a place in homeless accomodation. But yes, of course those greedy landlords should not get any money from the state for their tenants rent . Does anybody have a reasonable solution as to where these tenants will go if they don't get housing benefit to pay their landlords? At the end of the day the landlord is running a business and will rent to a private tenant if housing benefit is stopped for landlord properties.

cantspel my lha don't allow you to claim hb if you rent from a family member.

As for the bedroom tax, I agree with it in principle.
BUT its completely unworkable for all the reasons all ready mentioned.

I've skimmed through this thread but wanted to raise an issue i keep coming across through my work.

I met a lady today. She's a full time carer. Disabled son & mother. 3 bedroom house. The house has a dining room & living room. Her hb is reduced due to her council claiming the dining room is a bedroom. Even though its downstairs & she signed a tenancy for a 3 bedroom house.

Someone explain this to me!!

Sock - it's not that my salary is too high (very far from it!), its just that they don't offer HB for people with mortgages.

I also agree wih the bedroom tax in principle (and regards the debate about it's not a tax - I just regard it as a shorthand term, everyone knows of what you speak when you call it that), and also firmly believe it's been admininstered unfairly and cack-handedly.

This is despite me being one of those shortly to be paying it.

'Sock - it's not that my salary is too high (very far from it!), its just that they don't offer HB for people with mortgages.'

They do if you rent the property to someone in receipt of HB. So you can take a lodger on HB or let the property out to a person on HB and let a cheaper place yourself.

This is not an option for many in social housing as any form of subletting is forbidden.

Thanks expat, didnt realise this!!

Your mortgage lender, however, treacle, might not allow you to take on a HB tenant or lodger. Many do not and this is why it is difficult for those in receipt of HB, even when working, to find a private let.

In addition, the council can chase up a landlord for back/past HB on a tenant whom they later find to not have been entitled to it. This put a lot of landlords off, understandably.

I met a lady today. She's a full time carer. Disabled son & mother. 3 bedroom house. The house has a dining room & living room. Her hb is reduced due to her council claiming the dining room is a bedroom. Even though its downstairs & she signed a tenancy for a 3 bedroom house

That's not legal seriously its not. The amount of bedrooms have to be defined in the actual tenancy. Its the same reason why people who have had one room converted into a lift. (So its not a bedroom anymore) have to get the house reclassified re the amount of bedrooms. Its even been confirmed its not legal in the dwp legislation.

A dining room can be considered in a overcrowding case but not by HB.

As far as I'm aware there are currently 3 LA's who are pulling this stunt but people who appeal the decision are usually found in favor of. I'm waitng for it to happen in my area because it would amuse me to test it.

Expat. Can you please remove yourself from my brain as your much faster at typing my thought processes than I am

Thanks for your answer. I was really shocked at first but I've now met 7 tenants from one council with the same problem...

I agree that families who are trying to down size but can't because of availability shouldn't be penalised in the same way as families who have chosen not to move.

On the argument higher up the thread about it being unfair for children to have to move schools because the cost of living in their current house has risen too much for their parents to afford it, I don't understand how this is different for owner-occupiers whose mortgages have gone up, or indeed private renters whose rent has increased. Ie it's not fair on the children, but this is not a situation unique to those living in social housing.

cantspel in days gone by it was against the rules I'm sure. I remember having to declare that my landlord was not a close family member ten years ago.

Mind you, my Dad lives on the one of the most expensive private estates in my town and the number of single women with children who are "renting" their houses from the father of their children is amazing. Nobody notices that the children all the have the same surname as the "landlord".

Referring to people as "breeding" like animals and saying they should be sterilised is just lovely filee.

And people can work and have social housing.

Seems any thread these days is turned into benefit bashing one by bitter nasty people eho cant stand the thought that others are getting more than them or anything free (in their skewed nasty perception).

Heffalump I wasn't aware that there were grants that you could possibly claim. Would that grant be subject to repayment do you think? (sorry about the terribly late reply)

I don't think the dining room being classed as a bedroom is legal either.

I would love my HA to pull this at the moment, since I'm applying to move from my current home. If they did, I could "downsize" from 3 (4 with dining room) into a 3 (without).

What concerns me at the moment is rules on children who will be at uni but home in the holidays.

'Heffalump I wasn't aware that there were grants that you could possibly claim. Would that grant be subject to repayment do you think? (sorry about the terribly late reply)'

This is because in many areas, they no longer exist or never did.

"To people complaining about landlords getting housing benefit money to pay for their houses, Here's an idea, stop all housing benefit payments to private landlords. the tenants will inevitably get evicted due to non payment of rent and we have an even bigger housing crisis than we already have"

That's a very short-sighted view. The over-inflated rental prices are due to the fact that there is a shortage of properties and some greedy bastards have been buying up more than their share having had inheritances for the deposit and then relying on HB to pay the mortgages.

If we taxed second-owners appropriately then private rents might become more affordable, and less in the way of HB would need to be paid out.