Pensioners soon be hit by bedroom tax?

No it is not a condition that people have to be offered suitable accommodation before their benefit is reduced - that's why so many people are facing debt and huge distress.

Nor do they have to be offered any accommodation at all. They just get their benefits cut and are expected to still be able to pay the same rent.

We will carry on hogging our four bedroomed house as long as we can.
We both worked very hard for it, paid for it without anything much in the way of inheritance at an extortionate mortgage interest rate and will stay here as long as we are able and as long as family come home to visit, DGC come to stay and we are able to entertain visitors - and as long as we can afford the council tax.
Haven't we discussed all this recently?

I feel a generational divide when I see young mums in their 4x4s in their designer clothes and overhear them chatting about their planned visits to Disney Florida, their ski trips, trips to Centre Parks at half-term, trips away without the children. It was never thus for most of us 30+ years ago.

As for 'free heating'...I wish!

Politicians are encouraging a lot of nastiness amongst the general public just to get themselves elected, using the electorate like pawns.

Young against old, English against Scots against Welsh against Northern Irish, Thames Valley against the Somerset Levels, towns against country etc.

It's time we stood together and told them they and their quangos are the problem, it's time you all worked together for the good of the country.

My feeling is that this should apply to pensioners too but I do think there should be a suitable smaller property on offer before it is implemented. In fact, moving pensioners into one bed bungalows, etc., may help families in larger properties who have nothing smaller to move to. The only problem would be if there are no smaller properties in the area for the pensioners.

Jinglebellfrocks Our house has four bedrooms and we have no intention of downsizing. If you can afford your four bedroom house you would not have to move; if not you would have to consider it. This is really only putting those on Housing Benefit in the same position.

Anya if you fulfil the criteria for housing benefit income wise you would get help with your mortgage interest payments as far as I am aware. The capital would not be repaid after all, that would make you better off than you would be without help. The interest should just mean you keep your home.

... but it is also the better off now who worked the hardest and paid their taxes. Really Jinglebellfrocks? What a lovely, simplistic view.

Elegran I do agree with you that the property should be "suitable" in my heart, but I am aware that this has led to those on benefits being put in houses that those who are just over the threshold could not afford and they have had to manage with less. I wonder if they should look at other options. In retirement flats they usually have a guest suite. I hate the fact that when my family who live in Australia come I haven’t room to put them up but I just couldn’t afford a house that would allow me to do that.

What a simplistic view that those with the most have worked hardest for it! I have a wide range of friends in their 60s/70s and the best off inherited millions. Of the others, all worked hard but were rewarded differentially because of the type of profession they entered. Some have contributed enormously to society but are not amongst the best off financially. I see well off older people and well off young people but of the young people I know personally - late 20s/ early 30s, married with children, none have 4x4s, tHey work hard juggling home and children, have economical holidays and large mortgages. This government is doing a sterling job isn't it as said upthread of setting one group against another.

As Anya says, help for mortgage interest is only available for people on those benefits - low income alone is not sufficient as it might be for housing benefit

I didn't mean just this government though, Grannytwice - I meant all politicians of all parties, constantly ridiculing each other to score points. One party suggests something to help one sector of the public, then another party suggests to a different sector that it would disadvantage them, trying starting dissent amongst the public in order to gain votes.
No wonder people are put off politics and are disillusioned enough to not want to vote.

I don't know anyone who inherited millions (we must move in different circles! ).

But I do hear, see and read about a lot of younger people who seem to 'have it all' but are still moaning they can't afford this, that and the other latest thing.

Perhaps we should be very suspicious of whatever we are told in papers and on TV about any group - one minute it's pensioners who've never had it so good, the next it's the same about young people, then it's immigrants, then it's people on benefits.

I think Rosequartz might have hit the nail on the head:

"Politicians are encouraging a lot of nastiness amongst the general public just to get themselves elected, using the electorate like pawns.

Young against old, English against Scots against Welsh against Northern Irish, Thames Valley against the Somerset Levels, towns against country etc.

It's time we stood together and told them they and their quangos are the problem, it's time you all worked together for the good of the country."

I think that what we've seen in the last four years has been particularly damaging in terms of setting us one against the other. We'll have to disagree on young people - I think that demographic is as mixed a bunch as all of us. Of my close group of friends, three couples have inherited millions, two couples have probably getting close to a million coming, one couple downsized to improve his poorly performing private pension and hasn't inherited a bean, another couple have good public sector pensions and were also able to save during their working lives ( no children cheap housing area) but again didn't inherit anything and one couple earned a fortune during the 80s and 90s and spent it all and then some and are now living on the breadline. He inherited a tidy sum in the 90s but it went to pay an income tax bill they hadn't saved for. I realise that's not a cross section it is a mixed bag

Good post Grannytwice (16:22:22). I'm afraid I was being a bit sarcastic but I get so fed up with the idea that those with the most have worked hardest for it.

I think the problem with housing has become an appalling dilemma. I can see that one person occupying a three/four bedroomed social house is blocking another family desperate for more space! On the other hand this house is that person's home and probably has been for years. No doubt they're now elderly, family and friends live near by, and its almost always impossible to find a suitable property in the same area, thus causing enormous stress and distress to a person making this transition. I've no idea what the answers are, but I'm not sure that financially penalizing people and forcing them to move to a strange probably lonely existance is the answer, it just seems so cruel, but then someone else is desperate for more space, so what can you do? Dare I say it, but a lot of us live so much longer now, which on the face of it is a good thing but realistically going to cause social problems, housing being just one of them

Well, I'm sorry if you think my view is simplistic. But the fact remains that our generation did work hard, and we expected a lot less from life at that time. And you can't get away from the fact that we did pay our taxes and insurance. And, of course we feel miffed if the benefits we were promised are to be snatched away through no fault of our own.

Quoting Gracesgran: "Jinglebellfrocks Our house has four bedrooms and we have no intention of downsizing. If you can afford your four bedroom house you would not have to move; if not you would have to consider it. This is really only putting those on Housing Benefit in the same position"

I can't get what you mean there.

Btw don't worry about any sarcasm. I didn't actually notice any.

I appreciate that if someone was on housing benefit and that benefit was withdrawn, they might not be able to stay in their family sized house and would need to downsize. But how does that connect to my situation?

Harking back to the present working generation, I think they would be able live more comfortably on what they have if they just didn't want more all the time.

Why is there an article like this in the Telegraph?
It's very anti-Tory. If you are a pensioner and might be hit by it, then do not vote Tory.
What have the Tories done to upset the Telegraph and the Barclay brothers?

It's all hypothetical anyway. No party is actually proposing to change the current policy re pensioners' exemption from having to pay the 'bedroom tax'.

To be fairjingl- reading this thread gives no indication at all as to whether you are totally financially independent of any kind of benefits- not that there would be anything wrong about either situation. But fair, or unfair, those who own their own home and can cover costs out of their own income/pensions/savings, etc- will have more choice than those who do not.

Dont' want to get embroiled in this debate yeat again- but it is clear larger council homes are desperately needed for families with children- but also that suitable 2 bed housing for whole communities to move into, with proper infrastructure, need to be built urgently for older couples to move into.

Yes, but it's still in the Telegraph, and in the conservative section of the politics thread.
Just seems strange to me.

I don't know how this thread has got about me and my finances!

Wouldn't one bedroom properties be adequate? My teacher daughter manages fine in her one bedroom house (which she owns outright, despite being on a teacher's salary). And many of the other houses in her road are occupied by older couples. If they can build small properties for private ownership, why can't they build them for social housing?

The Telegraph is having a concerted attack on 'pensioners' at the moment.
A 29-yearold senior financial journalist from the DT whose name now escapes me, was on R4 the other day, arguing that we are all well-off and her age-group is suffering.
This was in the Telegraph the day before yesterday
Although the article 'we should celebrate' the fact that many pensioners are better off than they used to be, the subtext of the article is to stoke intergenerational conflict.

In the article that Mamacaz quotes, it says the number of pensioners in Manchester includes 10 people with four spare bedrooms and 11 people with five spare bedrooms.
Wandsworth council had one in a house with six spare bedrooms.

I think we can conclude that the number of people living in council accommodation with more than one spare bedroom is very small, and as others have said, there is a shortage of smaller homes for them to move to anyway.

Yes, but again he's attacking Conservative policy, Jane.
Is it just a warning to Cameron and Osborne to leave the tax situation as it is, or the Telegraph's owners could lose them votes?

Your guess is as good as mine jen