The Bedroom Tax - The big lie

[dazdon]

Having somewhere to live isn't a necessity anymore it's a luxury.

A luxury some people can ill afford.

The bedroom tax should have been set with realistic targets where you get a person or a couple rattling about in large family homes,but it's designed to hit the tenants who are firstly poor and secondly judged to have too much space (Even if that "Too much space" is just a poxy boxroom).

The limits set on rent in private accommodation needs to be looked at too...if you're poor and a couple you can only claim for a one bedroom flat which are hard to find so invariably poor people who rent in the private sector have to in effect pay a bedroom tax.

It's just wrong.

 

[manchester blue]

If somebody gets a house for free why should it include more rooms than they need when other people in social housing are overcrowded? If it's free you get the minimum you need. The people who say there is nowhere for them to go are not strictly telling the truth. Housing Associations [not government] are putting up money to enable moves but the majority don't want to as it's too much effort. The government have put up discretionary housing benefit so enable people to facilitate moves but it's just too much effort for people to apply for it and people bury their heads in the sand hoping it will go away. Well it might, it might not. Gone are the days of one free house for life, people getting free housing should be prepared to live by their means, just like those who are mortgaged do.

 

[hilts]

If somebody gets a house for free why should it include more rooms than they need when other people in social housing are overcrowded? If it's free you get the minimum you need. The people who say there is nowhere for them to go are not strictly telling the truth. Housing Associations [not government] are putting up money to enable moves but the majority don't want to as it's too much effort. The government have put up discretionary housing benefit so enable people to facilitate moves but it's just too much effort for people to apply for it and people bury their heads in the sand hoping it will go away. Well it might, it might not. Gone are the days of one free house for life, people getting free housing should be prepared to live by their means, just like those who are mortgaged do.

The principle in itself is fine but as per usual the flaws haven't been thought out properly, you can't hope to move that amount of people without there being massive problems

 

[stony]

Why wasn't a fuss made about it a few years ago when it was brought in for people renting from private landlords ?
It seems it's only become an issue when people who live in council houses have started to be affected too.

 

[Rascal]

The problem Rasc is that there are plenty of people like me for instance that agree in principle that the welfare system needs an overhaul and this includes disability and housing, the problem is that as a rule labour will do very little as it will upset a lot of their core voters, the tories will bring in policies that are ill thought out because they want to be seen to be tough on shirkers

so come election time i have a choice vote for one lot who will promote apathy or another lot who are incompetent

but the real problem is whoever i vote for it wont make a difference because of the area i live in

I also agree mate that the welfare system needs a huge overhaul. I have never said different.

Repeatedly on here i have advocated a rent cap, a cap which Thatcher abolised and makes private landlords a fortune on the back of the state through housing benefit. Rents should be set at the local average not at a landlords discretion knowing the state will pay. Thats just insane. A rent cap alone could save billions but as most landlords i xpect vote Tory it aint going to happen is it.

Labour again much to my disgust after Browns paltry 75p rise in the state pension were forced to introduce Winter fuel payments to escape the shit they created. I hate means testing as a rule but it should be done for this.


The one real bugbear i do have though is IDS and his mantra of helping people back into work. How does cutting peoples welfare help them find work? I really struggle to get my head around his thinking. If making people starve encourages them to work is his plan he is succeeding but with 2.5 million people without work and there being very few jobs i dont really dont see his reasoning at all.

To me, the Tories have found a reason to attack the feckless, workshy, life style choosing welfare claimaints nd they have managed with the help of the media to make it stick and become the norm. After all we know all know a scrounger dont we.

Its the scrounger rhetoric that most appals me. As a welfare claimant who can by no choice of my own no longer work it grates with me. I paid my taxes when i could work and i didnt make a lifestyle choice to become poorly. It happened and im thankful i get pretty well looked after to be honest, but i fear for the future when someone may decide having no knowldge at all about me that im fit for work and im left in abject poverty.

 

[hilts]

Why wasn't a fuss made about it a few years ago when it was brought in for people renting from private landlords ?
It seems it's only become an issue when people who live in council houses have started to be affected too.

i would guess that there is a lot more 1/2 bedroom properties available privately than council, if the figures quoted in the article are correct the main problem does seem to be lack of smaller houses

 

[stony]

Why wasn't a fuss made about it a few years ago when it was brought in for people renting from private landlords ?
It seems it's only become an issue when people who live in council houses have started to be affected too.

i would guess that there is a lot more 1/2 bedroom properties available privately than council, if the figures quoted in the article are correct the main problem does seem to be lack of smaller houses

Have a look on Right Move for 1 bedroom flats and see how many are available. There's aren't many. It's also next to impossible to get a council property since the Tories sold them all. So a huge proportion of single unemployed people are privately renting the cheapest property they can, which is usually a two bed terrace. They've been paying the bedroom tax for years but no one seemed to give a shit then.

 

[BigJimLittleJim]

Why wasn't a fuss made about it a few years ago when it was brought in for people renting from private landlords ?
It seems it's only become an issue when people who live in council houses have started to be affected too.

i would guess that there is a lot more 1/2 bedroom properties available privately than council, if the figures quoted in the article are correct the main problem does seem to be lack of smaller houses

A private landlord can more easily rent out rooms in shared houses - so where a house used to be rented out as a three bedder, it now gets let out to three separate sets of individuals/couples - more money for the landlord, but again, more red tape and hassle I suppose.

How do you carve up a council house logistically without getting wrapped up in red tape? Are council houses allowed to have lodgers paying etc..? A person on benefits would possibly lose their benefits if they started earning on their spare rooms if they sub let them perhaps?

It would have been far easier to just leave the whole situation alone in my opinion.

 

[hilts]

Why wasn't a fuss made about it a few years ago when it was brought in for people renting from private landlords ?
It seems it's only become an issue when people who live in council houses have started to be affected too.

i would guess that there is a lot more 1/2 bedroom properties available privately than council, if the figures quoted in the article are correct the main problem does seem to be lack of smaller houses

Have a look on Right Move for 1 bedroom flats and see how many are available. There's aren't many. It's also next to impossible to get a council property since the Tories sold them all. So a huge proportion of single unemployed people are privately renting the cheapest property they can, which is usually a two bed terrace. They've been paying the bedroom tax for years but no one seemed to give a shit then.

Fair do's but as we don't have the actual data we cannot say which sector has the most availability, the question is who can build these properties, who pays for it, and where would they be located

Just checked on right move for 1 bed properties in manchester and therer are a thousand and that's only right move

 

[Skip Donoghue]

When has any Government worried about flaws in a new tax they don't want people to move out of there houses, they knew full well there wasn't enough properties available

they don't give a shit about a mother and father with a young daughter and teenaged son living in a two bedroom house/flat and struggling for space....
they just want to cut the benefits of people with a spare room as simple as that and so use the Bedroom Tax as a reason to do so.....what everyone with a spare room should do is offer there place for swap and watch the useless twats in power little plan fall apart, but that would mean us the people sticking and standing together as one something that is missing from our nation
Unfortunately, we have made our beds and now we must lye in it.....revolution is the only way, the Egyptians have got it right, if it ain't working fuck the cutns off