BEDROOM TAX related. Letter mentioning Childrens Services. AIBU to think this is appalling.

[Darkesteyes]

Apparently if a parent recieves a letter notifying them of eviction proceedings they will be considered to have caused this situation intentionally and Childrens Services will be notified.
Ive seen at least 3 copies of letters like this on Twitter over the past few days. So

twitter.com/robolollycop/status/397035649460498432/photo/1

But surely the man Roseredder mentions doesn't have two spare rooms because he needs them for his children. What he could do if he didn't have children is irrelevant, he has to deal with his actual situation not a hypothetical one. Also, paying £28 out of £71 is not "a little extra", it's a significant chunk of his only income.

if roseredders friend was in private rent, he would not be getting the 2 extra rooms paid for in the first place.

someone working FT in the SE is unlikely to be able to afford 2 extra rooms, so its not unreasonable for the state not to provide this to someone who cannot afford it by other people's taxes.

from Sue Marsh, disability rights campaigner

"if roseredders friend was in private rent, he would not be getting the 2 extra rooms paid for in the first place."

That's not strictly true. There is a rent cap for private rentals but it is based on a flat rate for different types of accommodation, rather than an automatic deduction of x%. If RoseRedder's friend could find a private let at the lower end of the market with three bedrooms the council would pay his full rent - even though it would be higher than the cost of the full rent on a council property.

And once again: he does not have two spare rooms, they are his childrens' bedrooms.

I work in social housing (so shoot me) and have dealt with these cases. Basically, when a family with children is to be evicted (for whatever reason), we are obliged to inform Children's Services as those children are de facto vulnerable and Social Services may have legal duty to help them: i.e. to see that the children at least have somewhere to live. Sometimes this means effectively re housing the whole family. It doesn't necessarily mean the children will be taken into care and it isn't a moral judgment or anything. The question of whether the parents have made themselves 'intentionally homeless' for the purposes of the general homelessness legislation is a separate matter for the local housing authority. Just wanted to put in my 2 pennysworth!

Oh, and most people claiming HB - in the SE or elsewhere - are actually working. The problem is not of their making, it's due to a ludicrously overpriced housing market.

The man in question does have spare rooms. They are resident with their mum and so have somewhere to live already. Although having them over at the weekend is good, it's not for the taxpayer to subsidise.

If RoseRedder's friend could find a private let at the lower end of the market with three bedrooms the council would pay his full rent - even though it would be higher than the cost of the full rent on a council property.

then why doesn't he do that? it would free up his property for a family who needed 3 rooms.

The problem is not of their making, it's due to a ludicrously overpriced housing market.

it is not the general populations fault either. but they don't get 2 extra rooms.

I like threads like this. They flush out all the small-minded intolerant 'I'm all right Jack' benefit bashers so that I can note and avoid .

It's not benefit bashing to say you should only be given what you need. The aim is to get people scaling down when in a property bigger than their circumstances dictate.

right so say in central London you pay for rooms only used 1-2 nights per week. maybe per fortnight for some families.

meanwhile, other people, who cannot afford central London, spent time and money travelling to work, and see less of their own DC.

(NB: I am not a commuter)

fifi669 So you think children whose parents are divorced/separated should be deprived of spending proper time with both parents just to save the tax payer 0000.4p each?

YouAreMyFavouriteWasteOfTime The general population should be blaming the real cause of the problem, not kicking people who are already down.

Lovecat Quite.

The children are deemed to live permanently with the main carer (the person who claims Child Benefit for them) and no allowances are made for them at the other parent's house in terms of benefits, house size etc even in cases of shared custody. I have seen this cause lots of problems for people but not sure what the solution is. As said above, some men/women are unable to have their children on overnight visits for this reason (living in shared houses, awful bedsits etc) but is it really something we want tax payers paying for when the children already have a place to live?

saskia - if you think high house prices are the problem, what's the solution?

I didn't say that Rose, someone on benefits may or may not be physically or mentally able.

For all we know, the state and it's taxpayers are already paying for these children to have somewhere to live with their resident parent. Yet some people think that we should pay for them to have two homes because of the choices that their parents made? Unbelievable!

Three children is already a lot for the state to be subsidising for one family, let alone subsidising them twice!

It is a problem, but it's a problem that people need to take responsibility for and deal with themselves, without expecting others to fix it for them.

Err ... build more houses instead of expecting people to squabble over an ever diminishing supply.

But the the sate wouldn't be subsidising them twice. Their father won't get child benefit, tax credits or any other child related benefits.

I do find this bizarre. On one hand absent parents are rightly criticised, but a father who is playing an active role in the lives of his children is labelled a scrounger.

The state has a responsibility to house children adequately. They are. What if they stay with their grandparents two nights too? Should that also be subsidised? There are many different family set ups and saying one house gets the bedroom allowance is the fairest way.

there are about 900,000 empty homes in the UK already. why build more?

we are reliant on imports to eat.
and keep the power on.

we need to keep the land we have for feeding ourselves and use the current housing stock better.

But the the sate wouldn't be subsidising them twice. Their father won't get child benefit, tax credits or any other child related benefits.

If the resident parent gets housing benefit that covers enough rooms for the children, and the non resident parent gets housing benefit that covers enough rooms for the children, then the state would be subsidising them twice.

wanted to second what ClodiaF stated.

but i think rational posts are being overlooks by benefit frothing.

I really cannot see anything wrong with this letter.

If you fail to pay your rent and your children are at risk of being homeless, then informing social services is the right thing to do.

"there are about 900,000 empty homes in the UK already. why build more?"

Because those houses are, presumably, not council housing that can rented by people who need homes.

Also, we have plenty of land that can be built on already, unfortunately it is in the hands of building companies who are hanging on to it in order to make more profit. Which would be fine if we didn't have a massive lack of affordable housing, but we do, so frankly it's immoral.

It's not benefit bashing to say you should only be given what you need. The aim is to get people scaling down when in a property bigger than their circumstances dictate

Nope,the only circumstances that come into it are amount of household members (unless you fit into the two exempt groups of HB claiments then they also take into account two other circumstances)

They do not take into account indervidual circumstances such as adult disability status and equipment needed or even if the additional room fits the legal criteria to be considered as a bedroom or if its large enough to fit more than one bed in it (or even in some cases even fit one bed) any child protection concerns with bedroom sharing possible residency transfers for the same reason,any adaptations required that may make a bedroom no longer able to be used as one,any adaptations made to house making you unable to be moved as well as the many other reasons why the LA may tell you that you require a room for xyz reason and that's why they gave you a larger house in the first place.

The largest group (largest by a huge huge amount) of under occupiers (over 61's) are totally exempt from the rule as is the second largest group of under occupiers (LA house but no HB) and the group with the highest amount of none exempt (disabled household member over 16) people are mostly unable to be moved by the LA due to allocation rules and nobody in there right mind would state they should be. The small amount of people who most people think are effected by this that should be are negligible enough not to really matter.

And it still has not resulted in any great free up of houses and it won't because the small houses do not exist in any difference making amount and the largest groups either don't have to or can't be moved.

benefit frothers...
"The latest statistics show that £5.1 billion was unpaid due to tax evasion, which means illegal tax dodging and a further £4 billion through the slippery forms tax avoidance which HMRC consider is just about legal tax dodging. To place this figure in context, the amount lost through illegal evasion alone is enough to pay for the entire budget for the mainstream unemployment benefit Jobseeker’s Allowance, and still have change."

wow

"The total amount of missing tax is around seven times higher than the entire budget for the dole. "

double wow

from here - it also has sources

What do the costs of an illegal activity have to do with subsidising spare rooms for people that don't need them?