bedroom tax

[widepants]

It coming in soon.Any one on here effected by it ,and any thoughts on it?

I only have one and if they try to tax that I will have one huge front room lol

[BoltonSte]

As far as I understand it...may be wrong here:

If you are in a council house and have more bedrooms than you need, you are 'taxed' on that extra room?

I kind of get the idea, it stops people keeping a council house for years when they don't need one that size (I'm thinking older couple, kids have moved out etc...so don't need the space) or stops folk gaining more than they need (I always thought the whole council house arrangement, was to give you a leg up, you have the house you need for your requirements).

In theory it makes sense, but was clearly decided by a gibbering idiot who should not be allowed to use anything sharper than a spoon.
It's another sticking plaster for a broken system and does not take into account individual circumstances (I've seen one where there is a couple, one is a carer for the other, they cannot stay in the same room at night, yet are going to be 'taxed' because there's two of them so they only 'need' one room)

What actually needs to be done, is they either put you into the sized house you need in the first place, or carry out routine checks to see if the accomodation is still suitable (moving family's round when there are kids at school age is a whole other issue with this approach, but cold be managed by the intervals which they do the reviews).

What it really needs is the Gov to say...we really f'ed this up, the system was designed back in...whenever and families have changed so we need to review what we need to do as this is costing us too much/capita. Sort it and fix it, not just say...give us a bit of our money back.

I think they should simply limit council houses to 3 bedrooms and be done with it.

Saves a lot of hassle.

[widepants]

loads of other massive changes as well.There is to be a ceiling of £500 a week , including the housing benefit .So if you decide to keep dropping kids ,then tough! No extra money for you(bout time)
The housing tax , as it is being called is going to be hard on some families.What the government is hoping is that, so called, over housed families will simply move into a 2 bed house.These of course will be built over the next few weeks by the use of magic.
If you have two kids under 10 and lets say one of them has a mental disability and medical records saying they have to be kept seperate then tough.Now if you are a single parent and cant workbecause you have to look after your disabled child then you are obviously not on a hugh income.Out of your small income you then have to find 14 % towards the rent.
People of retirement age are not effected and a single pensioner can stay in their home no matter what the size

[punyXpress]

Anyone want to hire/adopt a single pensioner?
Not single yet but can be quickly arranged.
Must have garaging for bike.

The £500 is based on your 'Local Housing Allowance' which varies by area ana size of house (e.g I'm entitled to a 4 bed house due to kids and their ages etc) LHA for a house that size is £300 per week round here. Now I don't get that much because I work but we do get some help and we pay the rest of the rent. Even so £1200 per month won't rent a 4 bed house round here anyway.

There is a lady in Ascot who was in the paper as she lives a 3 bed house and because her 2 grown up sons are away serving in Afghanistan and their rooms are vacant for more than 3 months she has her benefit cut. THAT is not fair.

Its not really a tax just less of a handout imo.

Sent from my Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk

They really ought to have a feed in period or something to give people time to move.

[Teejayexc]

Originally Posted by widepants

loads of other massive changes as well.There is to be a ceiling of £500 a week , including the housing benefit .So if you decide to keep dropping kids ,then tough! No extra money for you(bout time)
The housing tax , as it is being called is going to be hard on some families.What the government is hoping is that, so called, over housed families will simply move into a 2 bed house.These of course will be built over the next few weeks by the use of magic.
If you have two kids under 10 and lets say one of them has a mental disability and medical records saying they have to be kept seperate then tough.Now if you are a single parent and cant workbecause you have to look after your disabled child then you are obviously not on a hugh income.Out of your small income you then have to find 14 % towards the rent.
People of retirement age are not effected and a single pensioner can stay in their home no matter what the size

So what is happening?

Some tenants are happy to move to a smaller dwelling but the smaller houses aren't there. In some districts tenants that will be *forced* out onto the street because they can't afford to stay in their larger dwellings, cannot legally be made homeless so the councils responsible have to pay to put them up in hotels or bed and breakfast accommodation at considerably higher costs, go figure !

Sometimes you have to take on short term costs for long term savings.


Although yes if that happens it will be the fault of incredibly poor implementation.