disabled will NOT be exempt from 'bedroom tax'

Frank We are not talking here about private houses, but about local authority rented houses. The proposal that is causing the furore is that tenants could be required to pay extra rent if one or more of their bedrooms is not occupied.

How do they know how many people are living in the property?

Elegran

I don't think a council could ever enter a private house and make a person sell his house if every bedroom is not used.
I have a 4 bedroom detached house with only 1 bedroom being used.

Oddly enough a Social Worker did suggest that a daughter could downsize her 6 bedroom house to pay her father's care fees. The father lived in the house but did not own any of it.

Sadly the father has passed away and she has now got a 3 bedroom bungalow but she is using the surplus money for holidays etc and did not pay any of the care fees.

Frank

But the council will know how many people are living in the property anyway, surely? There are rules about children sharing etc. so why would there be a need for 'spies'?

Exactly, Frank so the council will not be able to tell whether all the bedrooms are being used unless they change the right of acces and inspect evry house regularly.

Unless, of course, they rely on informers, possibly fixing little boxes to lamp-posts so that neighbours can slip in a note after dark to inform on anyone they don't get on with. Now where have I heard of that idea being used? Oh! I know . . .

Elegran

At present a council can only access a property if it is becoming a nuisance ( garden way overgrown etc ).
Probably in extreme cases the council should have powers to sell a property and to keep the money for the owner if he / she can not be traced.
If the council tax is being paid by direct debit the council could send notice via the bank and sell the house if no reply is received within 6 months.
The problem is however if say a house is sold for £160,000 and houses go up in price and the owner turns up say 5 years later and the house is valued at £280,000 would the council tax payers be responsible to reimburse the owner the £120,000 difference?.

Frank

So why the hair-oil are the posts starting to sound confrontational again?

We are all agreed that the proposals are hasty and ill-thought-out, and probably brought forward by those with no experience either of administering or of living in local authority accommodation. They have not noticed that the rent for a larger property is already more than for a smaller one, or that is impossible to distinguish an empty bedroom from an occupied one without giving a busybody council official over-riding power of access to private property.

Of course it has to be a choice - but for many it could be an excellent one. Having someone younger can be hugely beneficial, raise the spirits, give a new lease of life, help with some small chores and security to have someone in case anything happens, etc, and providing support is given.
As I said, the could be many choices to avoid a downsize or extra rent. Just one of many. And yes, more suitable housing need to be built urgently, so people can make a choice. We've agreed again and again, that the present 'bedroom tax' is being implemented too fast and unfairly- without suitable housing available.

It is already possible for those who need a smaller home to maintain to apply for a move, but there are not enough smaller homes available to move into, in decent areas where the neighbours are not teenagers who are newly independent (whoopee! parties!)

Taking in lodgers as a choice is fine, taking them in because the authorities say that you must do so to pay for an increase in your rent is not. When my parents were in army married quarters, people posted to the area with their wives and families were billeted with others until a quarter became available. My mother took ill with pneumonia while a couple were living in the house with us. Some time after she had recovered, she went to put on her distinctive engagement ring, which had been left in full view. It had vanished, but later, after we were posted on, the billeted wife started sporting an identical ring. It is a big decision to open your home to a stranger.

This thread is going round the same circles as it has at least once before. I shall leave it to those who enjoy fruitless argifying. Life is too short. Bye.

Its not just growing older which may be the reason you have to sell the family home.
I got early retirement in London and originated from Birmingham. My mother died at that time leaving my father in a large house.
As it happened my daughters and future son's in law went to university in Birmingham and decided to settle there.
Dad could not keep the house on his own from a financial and practical point of view and I did not want to be on my own in London so the house my daughters grew up in was sold.
I don't think this bothered them as they wanted me close by and it put me in to a position to put them on the housing ladder with assistance from the Son in law's parents. They are also now retired and live nearby.
Dad was left with half a house in ownership terms as I inherited Mum's half but he was able to stay in it for the rest of his life.
I don't think Dad was bothered being left a poorer man owing to not owning all of the house. I think he was just happy to stay in the house which he had lived in for over 50 years and he avoided going into residential care.
At one point I did suggest selling the house and getting a bungalow as I thought it would be better if Dad could not manage the stairs but happily this never happened and Dad did not want to move.
Strangely enough he did call me when he was 2 steps up 2 days before his death and said he was feeling dizzy but he managed to get down stairs. He did fall when he got in to the hall area but I managed to break most of it and he got 2 minor bruises.
I did call an ambulance but they did not blue light him to hospital. The paramedic said he had an interesting conversation with Dad on the way to hospital and said he would like to catch up with Dad some time.
Sadly Dad passed away in the hospital and I saw the paramedic a few days later and I had to tell him the news.

Frank

Once the initial upset and shock is over, many older people feel hugely relieved to have done the sorting and giving away, and to move to somewhere smaller without all the worries about cost and maintenance, etc, and what will happen when... It can be a great relief too, and give a great sense of freedom.

Whenim' excellent news that there are some excellent examples.

Elegran, I so agree with you. I am not talking about eviction, but people given some choices. Pay the 'tax' or extra rent, take on a lodger in need, well matched and with support, or move to the sort of accom Whenim is talking about - as a group of friends and neighbors who have been together for a long time and raised their kids together. With a communal garden and help to maintain.

Totally agree you can't just evict people and send them to Timbuctu on their own, without infrastructure or support, and away from the community they know. I've said that again and again. Which does not mean it can't be done well and sensitively. And that it does not make sense for singles and older couples to be in council property which are desperately needed for families.

And would you say that because some older people fall and suffer a broken bone, it should be obligatory that at a certain age everyone should be tripped downstairs to make sure that they suffer too? Have you watched the film "Logan's Run" ?

It costs a lot to downsize, financially and personally, just as it does to move lock stock and barrel to another country. Not everyone has the capital to pay for a major move - however much they have scrimped and saved when they were younger. Not everyone has the emotional and mental fortitude that you have, Granjura to up sticks and leave the environment that they have been weaving together for years and begin again building up friends and connections.

If this suggestion were adopted, it would have to be a blanket policy, with few exceptions, otherwise tribunals like Galen's would be inundated with applications to have their "eviction" overturned and subvert the draconian bureaucracy. It would take a whole new department to keep track of tenants as they age and their familes grow older and the parents become liable for "transportation". A new culture would develop of move-avaoidance, which would need policing. That would cost more than building more housing.

Plus, it would be unethical.

Having downsized a couple of times, I have vowed never to move again unless I become so disabled that I cannot physically manage to live here. It's not as easy as when you are younger, with children at home who ensure you mix socially because of schools etc.

I drove past a new development of housing yesterday - all social housing for rent from a housing association in a few weeks' time. It contains a mix of one bedroom flats and two, three and four bedroomed homes. Stone built dwellings arranged around a square and a couple of greens where children can play, overlooked by all the houses. There are shops and schools in close proximity. If that's what the house building programme is going to look like, I'm impressed.

OhI know - we didn't downsize, and in fact the contrary- but in order to have space, we had to move to a cheap part of the world, out in the sticks... and yes, in Switzerland. Our large house here was half the price of the house we sold in the UK. But we had to spend 2 years sorting stuff and giving it away to Charity shops and via freecycle. A skip would have been much easier, but I just could not do it. We had to give up a garden I had spent 30+ years getting just perfect, and same for the house. I was hoping to sell to someone who would love it as we did, and keep improving it- but that was just not possible- and yes, it is heartbreaking. Although in our case it was a choice- whereas for my parents it was not. They just had to do it- as they neither had the energy to maintain the place, nor the finances. In their 70s they had to get rid of so much stuff that had been in the family for generations- no choice. As it happens, at their demise (we moved here partly to be here for them in their latter years, but got here just too late) we inherited all the stuff that was left ...

As said, 100s of 1000s of people who own their own houses have no choice but to downsize later in life - it is not something that just happens (or in fact, does not happen) in council housing.

In Leicester, the council built a lot of bungalows some years ago for older couples, with excellent support and infrastructure, and older people with extra and unneeded bedrooms were given the choice to move there, on the other side of town, as a group of friends that had brought up their children together. It worked very well indeed, and one of my friends was delighted to move away from noisy families and have a groundfloor bungalow well adapted for their needs. it can be done, if done properly - thus releasing larger homes with gardens for families.

absent most of these empty houses are in the north I think, not in the south where pressure on housing is most acute.
granjura having just downsized I can understand why people don't. Heartbreaking yes, deciding whether to throw away so many things with memories attached. But also a huge amount of mental and physical effort. You can't make people do this if they have no-one to help them.

Thanks JessM and Absent. GreatNan, I can't remember any suggestions you made to house larger families, perhaps you could remind me.

Surely it would be cheaper to build smaller bungalows to house those with over-large now empty houses, than to build family homes. Just do not get the point about 'no point discussing this further' - surely we need to get all our brains together and try and find solutions. As teachers we know only too well the long-term damage to kids being brought up in bedsits and other totally unsuitable housing, emotional, physical/health and educational.

And as said, many people who have worked so hard to purchase their own homes just HAVE TO MOVE AND DOWNSIZE - and it is hard, and heart breaking often. But if you have your own home, nobody will come to maintain and replace your kitchen and fit a disabled shower, etc ... or give any help whatsoever financially or otherwise. 10000s of private owners have to downsize for financial or maintenance reasons. Should council tenants be totally protected from the realities of getting older. Can you not see how unfair it seems to those who have to give up their homes because they cannot afford to live in them or maintain them?

vampirequeen, I could not agree more, that no point crying over spilt milk... forwards we must go.

Another 2 situations I also heard of was:

a) a bungalow being left empty because it was in trust for the offspring, the parent was in care and the council was contesting the validity of the trust as it was having to pay care fees.
The battle went on for about 4 years and lost it's case.
By that time the parent had died.

b) a house was left empty for about 3 years because the relatives were contesting the owner's will.

Frank

absent

There was a house left unoccupied for about 3 years not far from where I live where the owner had died and it turned out there were relatives abroad who had a right to that house.
Also what would you propose would happen if the owner turned up after 3 years. Would he / she be compensated?.
I don't know the full circumstances but I also heard of a house where it was empty for 3 years and the council tax was being paid.

Frank

The assumption that "private buyers" are somehow at a disadvantage when compared with people in social housing I take issue with. I suspect that most people in social housing would love to be in the position to be able to buy their own property. Speaking for myself, paying a mortgage was at times a huge drain on our finances but at least now it's paid we have a substantial asset and the choice to downsize if we wish to.

People buying their own homes get assistance from the state when it is needed. As I understand it, if people buying their own homes are made redundant, after a qualifying period the interest on their mortgages (though not the capital) will be paid. As far as I know, even if such a person eventually obtains employment and his/her house increases in value, there is no provision for all or a proportion of the interest that has been paid on his/her behalf, to be repaid from the amount of the increased value.

Even those who earn relatively little, pay some income tax and if their earnings are so low that they pay no income tax, they still have to pay a disproportionate amount of VAT. I think it's time there was a little more compassion for people who may be doing very valuable but not very lucrative jobs (or those who cannot find employment) who are having a terrible time at the moment.

Sorry, meant "one of the latter" as in had been on the waiting list etc.

Ok

Several of us made suggestions on the previous thread about this tax but as they have been totally ignored there seems to be no point in continuing.

Frank you really are on a planet of your own!

"They could reduce expenditure on jails.
No windows or heat. They will soon be empty"

They will soon be empty. Oh, so convicted criminals would decline prison on the grounds that there were no windows or heat. Of course, they have a choice.

Re your incredibly ill informed remark about social/private housing, I suggest you get yourself up to speed! Yes, social housing is being built alongside private housing (shock horror!)

One of the London boroughs has recently converted dilapidated garages into 1 bedroomed flats, 5 have been sold, 5 offered on a partial ownership basis, and 5 rented out to tenants already on the council waiting list. One of the former who was interviewed on Radio 4 has been on the list for over six years, and is now moving in and paying (I think) around £150 rent.

There are enormous numbers of properties standing empty all over the UK, especially in the large cities. Some were scheduled for demolition and then the programme stopped so whole streets of boarded-up houses remain empty. Renovating such properties would cost far less than building new ones, could happen quicker and would cause less disruption to the rest of the community.

I also think that privately owned property that has been left empty for, say, more than 18 months or two years, should be taken over by the council for housing the homeless unless there is an exceptional reason for its being empty for so long.