disabled will NOT be exempt from 'bedroom tax'

Actually Frank you do have a point. There are several of council houses I see with top of the range '13 plated cars in the drive every night. Surely social housing is for those who cannot afford to buy or rent. This might be acceptable if there was a surplus of housing stock, but while families are in B&B accommodation? I don't think so.

The only other way I can think of is to charge the rent as if they are renting in the private sector where there would be an element of profit for the council.

Frank

He's just being silly as usual.

Only at the authoritarian, interfering, claptrap that is spouting from some other quarters.

Sorry, when, crossed posts. I'm sure you know the bloody hell wasn't directed at what you said.

Bloody hell!

Council tenants forced to leave, eh? Even if they are responsible tenants, who have worked hard to pay their way, pay full rent? I wonder how our European neighbours would view this, where a higher percentage of homes are rented?

Another thought I have just had is if a council tenant suddenly inherits a lot of money they should have their tenancy terminated. Again time should be given for them to buy the property and an extension given if they have made attempts to buy and something has gone wrong.

Frank

whenim64

It is difficult to put a figure on how much they would have to earn before council tenants would be forced to leave.
Obviously if a person suddenly lands a 60k job in London at 62 then it could be regarded as unreasonable to expect him to buy.
At 40 if a similar thing happens in Birmingham then they should be forced to buy.
Yes people's circumstances change and mortgage holders can no longer pay their mortgage and the situation has to be looked at.
I have been made redundant twice but got an immediate pension in both cases.
Some people have thought it was wrong that my mortgage was paid off by my wife's life assurance when my wife died when they are struggling financially due to a divorce.
Some of my wife's relatives thought it was also wrong when my in laws stayed with myself and my daughters and also gave us a certain amount of financial support and left their estate to my daughters.
What they forget is if my wife had lived the money would have gone to her and then my granddaughters anyway.
One person even told my mother in law she would not want to have had anything to do with the son in law if her daughter had died. I could understand this if he had murdered her but my wife died of cancer.

Frank

....and conversely, what's your threshold for being allowed to stay in the home you are buying on mortgage if you cannot afford its upkeep and would be better off in a council house? I would love to be there when the newly impoverished mortgage holders turn up with their keys and suggest a swap!

So house owners have more rights than paying tenants, Frank. Is that what you're saying? What's your threshold for being allowed to stay in a rented house before you should buy one?

Elegran

I do know of a case where somebody is living in a council house and this may have been justified at the time he was given the house but I now know he is earning £60,000 plus a year, his wife is also working and he is under 40 so he has got 20+ years of working life left.
If it had been me I would have wanted to move out of the council house and purchased my own and I think his tenancy should be terminated ( obviously reasonable notice should be given possibly a year and an extension given if say he has tried to buy a property and it has fallen through).
I did hear of another case where it said in a local newspaper that some council house tenant had a total income of over £100,000 going in to the household but there were 3 sons at work living at home so I think that would need looking at and I think a view would have to be taken that the sons could leave and buy their own property at some point and the ability to buy based on the parents income alone.
When the son's leave however the parents should have to move to a smaller property.

Frank

Thank you, Bags and When I have said this several times on the thread. We do not need another layer of second-class citizens who have no security of tenure and can be expected to either shell out more for nothing extra or ship out. They are NOT a bunch of freeloaders being housed at the taxpayers expense. They are people who for one reason or another did not have the capital to get onto the property ladder.

I note that it is not those who started off in local authority housing until they could scrape together a deposit and then move on who feel that council tenents should have no right to security and privacy in their own homes.

Well said, when. Why shouldn't rent-paying tenants have the same security of home, the same ability to have visitors (relatives, for instance), and other 'luxuries' that home-owners have?

The only fundamental difference between homeowners and rent-payers that I can see is that the rent-payers pay rent for their home because they weren't rich enough to afford a mortgage deposit to get on the home onership ladder.

This bedroom tax appears to be a way of being mean to poorer people rather than a way of solving a housing shortage.

Where does it say that social housing provided to families was never meant for life, Granjura? When people of my and my adult children's generation were applying for a local authority house, there was no doubt that their tenancies were permanent, and they could expect to live there for as long as they wished. It's only recently, because of ASBOs, that unsuitable tenants started to have probationary tenancy contracts, and now a few organisations have adopted this method for bad behaviour reasons, not for family size. They get allocated housing according to current need.

Those older tenants of family homes, who have settled in their communities and put down roots with neighbours, churches and local amenities over the course of a generation or two are now being made to feel guilty for something that is not their fault.

Let's not advocate creating another group of dispossessed people, who want and need to stay put. Choice for those who feel able to take it, and for whom there is suitable alternative provision, by all means. My grandparents lived in the same house for 50 years. It expanded for family, then visiting grandchildren, and it made room for a bed in the sitting room when they were frail, and stuff out of that room went into the spare bedroom. They had next door neighbours on either side helping to support their care at home when we were at work, which they wouldn't have got if they'd been shifted elsewhere. The neighbours wouldn't have been moving with them. That would have meant costs to the taxpayer. We should give credit for the informal support that is going on around us, that doesn't cost the taxpayer a penny.

Totally agree more humanity and caring is needed- said it all along - and yet it does not mean solutions have to be found and it will also take some with no longer needed larger Council houses to adapt and accept change. Family council houses were never meant for life, but for ... families.

The bedroom tax applies to those in work, and those on benefits. Many in work will qualify for some form of top up benefit because they're on the minimum, rather than living wage.
There is little, if any, discretion in applying the tax so people who are already struggling to pay heating bills, and put food on the table, will be under even greater pressure.
The answer's have been given in this discussion. Build more social housing, and if it could be as When describes the Housing Association development she saw, that would be wonderful. Housing Associations locally built a number of houses with 5 bedrooms, alongside flats/bungalows with one, and those two areas are where greatest need is.
What about the example of the many unemployed, separated fathers who were allocated two bedroom apartments years ago, before the housing problems became so acute. Many of these men have been able to have their children stay over so the "spare" room isn't spare, the children stay there say 3 nights a week and half the school holidays. I read that Leeds council is designating these rooms as "studies" rather than bedrooms, to avoid the tax for its tenants.
Remember the Judge who described the arrest of Mick Jagger as crushing a butterfly on a wheel. That sums up my feelings about the way in which so many ordinary people are being treated. Yes we need more housing, yes provide more appropriate housing for people who no longer need/can maintain, the houses in which their children grew up. But, don't lose humanity, compassion and decency as we make necessary changes.

Heaven knows, Ana

I'm confused - have we moved on to a 'bedroom tax' for ALL council tenants, not just those who are claiming housing benefit? (I may well have missed a vital post somewhere along the way...)

But surely the poll register tells each council how many people live in a house, be it private or council??? If people cheat on this, then surely they deserve to be found out - like anybody else who cheats the system, including tax evaders and fraudsters, of course!

And when it comes to these awful people who do up and then sub rent council properties while they live a Champagne lifestyle abroad, I have no word for them. Would you consider it intrusive to find them out and get them to repay what they stole from the State, or rather US, or rather the ones who truly need it. Is it intrusive to find out who falsely claims invalidity benefits, etc?

In other words, policing such a "tax" would involve an unacceptable level of invasive municipal interference, and the labelling of part of the population as "second class citizens" to whom the normal attitudes do not apply. Two nations.

Most tenants of LA housing pay their rent regularly themselves, on time and in full.

What is declared on an electoral roll, a tenancy agreement, or a council tax form may not be still what is actually the case, either more or fewer people may still be living in the house.

Whatever the number, to administer the proposal accurately and fairly would take time and manpower, which would cost money and red tape and need administration itself.

If someone's claiming housing benefit, they'd have to state how many people occupied the property - and it's those people who are being affected by the 'bedroom tax'.

Elegran

According to somebody I know who lives in a 2 bedroom council bungalow all occupants have to be named on the tenancy agreement.
His wife was with him when he went in to the bungalow and she has now passed away.

Out of interest he was getting bothered a little while ago.
There was a clause on his tenancy agreement saying the council could take back the bungalow if it is not occupied for 3 months.
He was in hospital for 103 days.
Relatives went in and looked after the bungalow and he continued to pay his rent by direct debit.
His bungalow was there for him when he got back.

Frank

Elegran

The council would know there is only 1 person in my property as I am claiming the single person discount.

I suppose they could look at the voters lists for multi occupied property.

Strangely enough there is a clause on my land certificate saying my house is for occupation by a family.

There are many houses around here which were occupied by families when they were purchased but the husband / wife has now passed away and the children have now left.

They are mainly 4 and 5 bedroom houses with a double garage. I am not sure what would happen if somebody said they objected to all of the single occupiers and wanted them out.

To my knowledge one of them is a man in his 90's and another is a lady getting close to 100.

Frank