Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
Vic.
You are right, that couples in 3/4 bedroomed premises should be asked to downsize.
However there are many problem with this issue and again you are right that this is not the right way to go about it but you are wrong about it being about getting a few extra bob out the public because it is going to cost far more to implement that it ever save the taxpayer.
One problem is that many of these couples, especially the elder ones, do not know themselves that they would move, if they were given the opportunity.
My own Mum & Dad were classic examples of this. When sat in their 3 bed house, long after we had all left home, both were adamant they would never be forced to move out of their home, even when they were struggling with illness. Seeing them struggling, I went to the council and when a vacant 1 bedroom flat with on-suite disabled bathroom became available, I got the keys and without telling them, I took them to view it.
The moment they stepped through the door, they could not wait to move in.
The problem is today, there is little or no vacant properties for people to move to even if they want to move.
DDC does not have enough disabled adapted properties, which I believe must be breaking some EU rule or law, perhaps someone from the council could answer that question for me?
Another problem would be the assistance fund set up to help people downsize has run dry due to this benefit cut.
And another problem is that tenants wanting to move, have to access the internet and navigate a complicated website which is pointless for our elderly people many of whom do not have access to the internet.
Instead of wasting money on paying a team to collect this rent or evict tenants if they don't pay up, why don't this same team help people to downsize?
I am pleased to praise the Dover team, dealing with concessionary applications, they are helpful where they can be but are under great pressure, to deliver what is expected of them.
This must be stopped now.
Give this team different instructions to concentrate on helping people downsize amicably and without threat of eviction.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
a light touch on the issue.
Guest 745- Registered: 27 Mar 2012
- Posts: 3,370
I have had the nod that this tax's is being scraped on social housing , to Hot an issue apparently
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
Iain Duncan Smith not only a Buffoon but an April Fool...........
Peter Barker, the man whose 'Bedroom Tax' loophole could help up to 40,000 housing benefit claimants to get their money back
Iain Duncan Smith's nemesis has never sat on the green benches of parliament. In fact, he has never met the Work and Pensions Secretary at all.
But Peter Barker, a 53-year-old self-confessed anorak from Romford, Essex, made a discovery that is likely to cost the minister millions. He found a loophole in the so-called bedroom tax which could mean that up to 40,000 housing benefit claimants can claim money back.
Overall the controversial policy affects around 660,000 housing benefit claimants who are deemed to have one or more "spare" rooms and have between £14 and £22 a week deducted from their benefits.
Tenants who have occupied the same property continuously and taken housing benefit for it since 1996 should never have been included in the policy, Mr Barker discovered. When the Department for Work and Pensions drafted the controversial legislation it did not update housing benefit regulations dating from that year.
Those affected include some who are facing eviction because of the bedroom tax- or who have been forced to move to smaller properties.
Mr Barker, who is a consultant on housing policy, put up his findings on a blog called Rights Net and it instantly went viral. Now more than 10,000 people have viewed it - rather more than his usual blog audience of "two or three hundred".
Last week the Government conceded that Mr Barker was onto something, issuing a circular telling councils that exempted tenants should be refunded all money deducted under the policy since 1 April.....................
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
you would think that the cobbled together lot would have made sure there were no loopholes
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
Aren't you glad there were though, Keith ?
Roger
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Am I glad? no not really this will drag this out further
cost us all probably millions, another re think
more costs
round and round
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Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
But it means 40,000 peopler will get their benefit reduction paid back - why are you not pleased for therm, about that ?
Roger
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
George will get his dosh one way or another
and it will be the poor as always ho will be hit hardest
while the banks you so love get richer
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Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
52, pointless tribal comment Keith.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
but true peter
I had no doubt you would defend
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
I'm surprised that this is the first case. When I first heard about the bedroom tax, this was my initial thought. It's easy to define a bathroom and a kitchen (without both it is hardly accommodation) but defining other room useis slightly harder. I remember renting a house as a student and due to all wanting a room on the same side of the house, we rearranged the use, this caused the landlady to suggest increasing the rent as we had an extra bedroom...which of course we didn't, we were just using a room downstairs for a bedroom and freeing up one upstairs. It's funny how stuffy we are as a nation when it come to how we perceive houses.
This 'reform' is just another knee jerk, poorly conceived IDS special. To his defence, he does find definitions quite hard; he even found it hard to define which university he went to in Perugia! At least he has removed that oil painting of himself from his website - As this happened around the same time as the £53 comment, I can only thinks that it cost more.
I have no doubt we need reform, but can we at least have reform that is long term, not quick fix and is actually made by people with an idea of the world around them i.e. not IDS.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 715- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 2,438
They were all probably in discussion with UKIP at the time
Audere est facere.
