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. :(

Whothefuck - I'm not talking about swapping from council to private. I'm talking about swapping council for council.

LousThighBurn - a lot of families have been offered a grant to cover m

LousThighBurn - a lot of families have been offered a grant to cover moving costs iirc.

Why are the elderly exempt? Surely they are the largest group of people sitting in council houses that are too big for them?

Because they tend to vote Tory.

And so the government can say they aren't actually heartless fuckers. Win-win for them.

There are no 2 bed council houses in the village I live in, there was but they've all been sold, my DD is 9 and my DS is 7, so I'm stuck paying it because it's not worth moving and changing schools for when I have to pay it for less than a year. We've lived here 6 years and the rule was age 5 for sharing then.

They tend to vote more.

X post

I live in a 2 bedroom house in the middle of nowhere, ds is of to uni in September.
I'm on benefits, soon to go on ESA, I've no clue how I'll manage.
There are no one bedroom flats/homes around here, and if there were I couldn't afford to move anyway.
This system is as unworkable as the poll tax and I can see it going the same way, with people refusing to or being unable to pay.
It's going to be a huge headache for councils across the country.

Agree with heffalump

Round here as well, there are at least as many overcrowded one and two bed council properties as there are under occupied three beds.

The trouble actually is, the three bed tenants are too used to having houses and gardens and simply don't want to downsize to flats.

(Well pay the fourteen measly quid a week then and just be fucking grateful you're not sleeping three to a room then you moaning bstards)*

*just my incredibly bitter opinion

Breezy - from what the lady at my housing association said, the decision you have made has been quite a common one. I think most families have weighed up whether the are able to absorb the cost in order to avoid disruption. Obviously there are those that simply cannot afford to do this, but there are plenty that have decided that moving away from schools, friends, family etc is not worth it to save the money. (disclaimer - I can only comment on what the housing association have said is happening in my area.)

A lady in my mum's block of flats has been offered a two bed flat (she is in a 3-bed now) 16 miles away from her current home. Her DS is in secondary school. The poor boy would have to leave his school and friends/family to save his mum £60 a month, that she can ill afford.

Between a rock and a hard place is about right.

In my area we have a glut of 3 beds and no one beds. There was no demand so they were not built. Council properties in my village are empty because the third bedroom is basically a cupboard and people on benefits don't want to pay extra for it.

There are no jobs up here either. Very depressing and I'm glad to be leaving.

It's not a tax. It's a reduction in the subsidy of Housing Benefit. To call it a tax is a bit daft IMHO.

It is a rule and it should not be allowed to be applied retrospectively.

I hope this is just one of those stupid Tory ideas like Workfare which found itself to be illegal when applied in practice. In the meantime a boy has to travel 16 miles to go to school or his Mum goes without £60.

Saucy - that is just what the housing association said. They made it clear that we are eligible for a two bed place, but that overcrowding is so common that eligibility means nothing on the transfer list.

We have even looked into swapping for a three bed and having bil live with us (to help us financially and get him away from crappy ils), but still had no luck despite widening the search. Just to say, our one bed flat is a good size, has parking, communal garden, nicely decorated, nice area etc so it should be quite desirable!

I'm sorry but I think your wrong, there are plenty of smaller places I know as I am in one, I've just started my own thread about it, or maybe its just depends on area, most certainly the wait is shorter for one beds in my council (london-greenwich) as there are many, yet the bigger places have years and years waiting times, I am in a one bed with 2 children and one on the way, no one and I mean no one will swap with me and I have been on every swap site going! They all as another poster said 'turn there nose up' they don't want high rise or estates, which is fair enough I guess but my point is there are smaller places people just don't want to live in them, I've been told by my council to expect atleast a 5 year wait at the very minimum. This wouldn't be the case if more people downsized and swapped with people in smaller properties but they are too fussy, all want gardens or groud floors

Are you allowed to swap for a bigger place even if you have no need for it? So if you are on a high income can you pay more for a 3 bed even if you are single?

Marmalade, the problem there is that she was put in a 3bed in the first place. If there was just this woman and her son then they should have been given a smaller flat to begin with.
It is ridiculous to expect teenagers to move schools because their parents can't afford the extra.

sorry havent got a clue about this , but is it only affecting people who claim housing benefit or is it affecting anyone who pays rent to a council ?

Noobie - yes, if you are not reliant on housing benefit to afford the rent you can swap for a larger property whether you need it or not.

Most council's have restrictions, noobie, even for those who pay full rent, which is probably the majority. I don't know if it is the same now, but my council will generally allow one person less than the property was designed for. They do allocate 2 beds to single people as most one beds are ground floor, so those with mobility issues will have priority. I know a friend with 3 children in a 3 bed flat wanted to arrange a swap with a pensioner in a 4 bed house and the council vetoed it as it would have meant that not one, but both would have been underoccupied.

Cecily - ah again, my ha might be different to others. I was quite surprised at the swap meet they were encouraging me to look into three and four beds aswell even though we only need a two. We wouldn't be able to afford a four anyway, but a three might be manageable if we move bil in.

Precisely, Mary-Katherine. They were offered this flat in good faith and now they are having the rug pulled from beneath their feet. It's unfair and I doubt they would have taken that property on if they knew this was in the pipeline.

My mum is in a 3-bed council property and my brother has moved out. My mum works and doesn't qualify for HB, so she pays her own rent and avoids having to pay for the spare rooms (one of which can hardly be called a bedroom anyway) She is on the waiting list for a smaller house or flat (she doesn't care what she goes into as long as she isn't too far from where she is now because of her job) and she has been offered diddly-squat in 3 years.

Also want to add my mums friend was in a 6 bed house, agreed to down size she didn't even have to bid the council nominated her for a new build 4 bed house (yet when I called to ask how to be nominated they denied any knowledge of this, yet I had witnessed it for myself) she had all her removal cost paid yet I'm in band C... The lowest!... Yeh I feel really sorry for people who are underoccupying