to wonder why the bedroom tax gets more attention than the fact that private renters getting Local Housing Allowance always have to top up their rent?

[coco87]

The bedroom tax is constantly in the news and I understand that people feel strongly about this. However, I am a bit perturbed as to why the bedroom tax gets so much more attention than the plight of private renters and especially those who can only pay their rent with Local Housing Allowance but always have to top it up from wages/other benefits because LHA only covers a percentage of most private rents?

Why isn't anyone in government protesting against this excess which is normally much more than anyone currently having to pay the bedroom tax would ever have to pay?

For example, one of my friends lives in a flat and she gets £230 pw in LHA but her rent is £290 pw (this is London), so she has to find £60 extra to top it up. There are now more people private renting than social renting, so this should be a much bigger issue imo, although both are a scandalous.

YABU. Many private renters who are eligible for HB can not claim it because their tenancy agreement states 'no dss'. We are eligible to receive HB (we work though) but despite this our landlord or landlord's mortgage company rather, would not accept tenants in receipt of dss.

You are wrong.

It depends on the rent.

I am private and my whole rent got paid (just started a job so no longer get it)

no dss is highly immoral imo and should be legally challenged (but by whom?)
most buy-to-let mortgages seem to have this as a condition, it's really making me angry.

expatinscotland

"Many, many of them areforbiddento take in lodgers at all in their tenancy agreements, much less make a profit by it."

This Is not forbidden in the tenancy agreements where I live. And I thought from October 2013 it is definitly allowed under new "BEDROOM TAX" rules.

m.insidehousing.co.uk/6522846.article?mobilesite=enabled

Am I mistaken? Please let me know if I have it wrong.

In letters my sister has received from her council it specifically states she is allowed to take payjment for a lodger with no loss of benefits. It doesn't even mention a limit. Theoretically she could rent her spare room for a million pounds a week.The room let to a lodger will, however, be classed as a spare room and fall under the bedroom tax, which will be £14 per week on average.

This system is so open to fraud.

speye.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/lodgers-to-cost-hb-3-4-billion-per-year-more-and-get-rid-of-the-bedroom-tax-yes/

My sister now rents her room to her son's best friend who has lived next door for 20 years. Son's best friends mum does the same. They both recieve £75 a week in rent while losing £14 a week in HB. Their benefits are not affected.
Both sons spend all day in their own mothers house but sleep next door ( officially). Costing HB £ £122 per week more than before bedroom tax mad e them think of this scam.

Immoral? Yes

Illegal? No

Redshifter has a valid point. If you have a mortgage and have to claim support you can only get the interest paid, but the government turn a blind eye to the fact that in a private rental housing benefit ( plus possible top ups) pays the WHOLE of the LL's mortgage .
That double standard really grinds my gears

And as pps have said the insecurity is horrible, my lovely rented flat is mine and DD's home and we would hate to have to leave, but it's always, always at the back of my mind.

The LHA in my area is £144 p/w. My rent is £725 so even if I got the full amount it would be nowhere near. As it stands, I am a single parent earning £19k pa plus CHB for one child and about £2500 pa in tax credits. I get £36 per week housing benefit It's really hard going most months.

Yes, you are mistaken, red. Our HA tenancy in Scotland explicity forbids taking in lodgers of any sort or running a business from our home.

We have received letters to the effect, too, red, as we are under-occupying due to my daughter's death, although do not use housing benefit, that we are under-occupying and that taking in lodgers is a form of sub-letting forbidden by the tenancy agreement. Many HA tenants have agreements stating such and also forbidding sub-letting of any sort, running a business from the home or even suspending right-to-buy. Many councils and HAs in Scotland have moratoriums on right-to-buy they can and do extend ad infinitum.

council housing became a kind of w.c. privilege you couldn't touch. private renters i agree were by comparison unfairly just left to get on with it, topping up as necessary, and they dont have the same political clout. the whole of the housing mkt is effectively being deregulated though dont know where it will end up.

and agree eith Samham's double standard. V. unfair too.

Absolutely agree with you op. This is a huge problem for so many people but I find its something that just isn't on the radar of those who aren't private tenants.

I don't know how the broad rental markets managed to be so out of step with the reality for renters.

Have just checked my local area on Rightmove, there is nothing at or below the lha rate. The closest is one single property and that's £80pm above lha. The rest start at £130 above, up to £330 above. And we're not talking luxury properties here, though at a minimum of £1000pm they probably bloody well should be.

But really, pitting private renters against social housing tenants is part of the spin. You get Conservative MPs spouting, 'Private renters don't get a subsidy for a spare room.' No, they get LHA caps, and discrimination: No 'DSS', no children.

If they can fly under the LHA caps, all good, but why the spin? Why the nasty race to the bottom? Why do people fall for their claptrap when the real problem is not social tenants on HB, who are largely disabled, under-employed due to zero-hours contracts and lack of full-time work opportunities, unemployed (because the 'bedroom tax' does not apply to those age 61+ or those social tenants who pay their rent), but that the cost of housing is so high that so many working people have to use LHA/HB, and addressing the problems of: discrimination in housing (no DSS, no children), short-assured tenancies (I've been around on MN a long time now, 8 years), unregulated letting agents taking both landlords and tenants for a big ride, etc?

Expat-

Maybe I am mistaken. Do different councils/HAs have different rules?
I honestly d1on't know.
I was sure I read on DWP website that scial housing tenants affected by "spare room subsidy" will be able to sub let rooms but cant find It now. So maybe they backtracked or I got it wrong. I know for sure you can in some areas.

The idea was well publicised when bedroom tax was first proposed.

m.insidehousing.co.uk/6522846.article?mobilesite=enabled

Perhaos it was just a sop to shut up objections.

I have tried googling to find out how the local rental markets are ascertained but not got anywhere.

Does anyone know? Is it assessed by some impartial body?

I agree with what expat has just said

I mean, it just can't be right.
So there a cap, nationally, fine. But taking that aside (my local rents are ridiculous but there's plenty of properties that come within the £290pw cap - the problem is that the actual lha for a 2bed is set at £212pw) how on earth do they get to the sum they have when it bears no relation at all to what the rents are.
It's scandalous, it really is.

Single parent with a child or 2 kids in a three bedroom place keeps getting told to take in a lodger.

Who is going to pay for the CRB check on the lodger!

It's all divisive.

Keep or minds off other things.

We really need to build lots of social houing.
It will also stimulate the economy provide jobs and create the supply needed in the supply and demand capitalist system. Making haousing (a basic human need) in reach of ordinary people.

I suppose this would cut the landowners profirs.

It's a ni brainer.

We need to build houses. LOTS OF THEM

red Our tenancy agreement expressly forbids taking on lodgers, and ours is a standard agreement around here.

The rental market is fucked, hated being in private rentals with no security, having to top up HB and knowing that the LL could easily put the rent up and force us out.

And that was once you'd found somewhere that wasn't £100 over the LHA and that took DSS.

I am eternally grateful to be in social housing now.

But disheartened to realise that people are actually buying into all this shit about it being unfair and that social tenants should have their situation worsened rather than private tenants have theirs improved! Surely the latter is the obvious one!?

'Maybe I am mistaken. Do different councils/HAs have different rules?'

Yes, they have. In many councils, there is no more 'council' housing, the councils spun off their stock to housing associations in return for having their debt written off by The Treasury. We have no 'council' housing here. It is all HA. Some areas have both HA and council housing.

A tenant is bound by his/her Tenancy Agreement. Always, as he/she signed it. And many, many, forbid sub-letting in any form, including lodgers. I suppose this could be taken to court, but now Legal Aid is limited, honestly, who has the wherewithal to do so?

Ours explicitly forbids lodgers or running any business from the home.

'But disheartened to realise that people are actually buying into all this shit about it being unfair and that social tenants should have their situation worsened rather than private tenants have theirs improved! Surely the latter is the obvious one!?'

Exactly, MurderofGoths! Why the race to the bottom? Do you not see what spin that is?

Just dug out our 4-year-old tenancy agreement, there it is, forbidden to take lodgers.

The private renting rate is not overpriced, its the price set by the forces of the market.

That's bollocks. Renting out is closed shop with the price set by the landlords. That's why housing benefit has to prop them up. If there was no HB then rates might drop to reflect what tenants could afford.

Murder- "But disheartened to realise that people are actually buying into all this shit about it being unfair and that social tenants should have their situation worsened rather than private tenants have theirs improved! Surely the latter is the obvious one!?"

Totally agree with this.
Government divinding us on a race to the bottom.

Once again people as in many of these debates can we PLEASE stop the race to the bottom?

Instead of resenting 'rights' social renters get (rents increased to 70% of market rate plus bedroom tax in last 2 years alone) there should be a fight to get either more rights for private renters or more social rents built.

There SHOULD be security of tenure for everyone - heck it happens in Europe as a matter of course. Private rents should not be so high but then if you lowered them the house price bubble would burst and homeowners would start shrieking that they'd lost their asset.

It's soooo fucked up in this country that housing - a basic need for everyone - is considered a financial asset. It shouldn't be . It should be home.

Expat - typical. Bloody politicians lying while trying to sell us a new "policy initiative".

I'm searxhing for vid link now where IDS said at Tory conferenxe speech that people affected by "spare room subsidy"will be able to take lodgers. He must have known tthatit is forbidden by most social landlords.

This sort of political spin doesn't surprise me but still makes be angry.