4.5% of people affected by "Bedroom Tax" have downsized
Ethel_Fred
Posts: 34,127 Forum Member
✭✭✭
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/15/bedroom-tax-hardship-dwp-study
more than 35% of tenants affected by the bedroom tax had been issued with formal eviction warning letters by autumn 2013.
Forty-one per cent [of landlords] said they now had three-bed houses lying empty as a result of the bedroom tax.
0
Comments
I don't see it as a deliberate attack on the needy. It was a reasonable idea mooted by both sides at one point or another that just turned out to be unworkable in practice.
They should just scrap it.
I guess the government had to raise money from some people to pay off the mess created by the financial sector.
Maybe they should do a bit of research before implementing decisions, and make more informed ones.
Availability is kind of academic if 80% of the people didn't even register an interest in moving
Perhaps they were put off by the cost of moving... which naturally they could all magically afford.
There is no facility for people to downsize, it's a fact. The smaller flats/houses just don't exist in sufficient numbers.
It was a combination policy of saving money and hurting people. It sounds like it couldn't be true but Iain Duncan-Smith keeps creating unnecessary pain for people and you have to assume he's happy with that.
Is he a psychopath as some people claim? So much of what he does touches on sadism.
There was a definite plan to make life uncomfortable to live on benefits. That's evident
from the policies that have been implemented.
That may be no bad thing, but this policy clearly doesn't work and should be scrapped.
For what reason ?
to SAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAve .....
MONEY
^_^
except they didn't cut EVERYONE'S benefit, deciding that having a PRECISE amount of rooms was far more important to have, 'cos everyone is socially mobile and can move about the place ..... EASILY!!!!!
it was such a great and effortless idea, that they didn't need to do any research on it, as it would have gone down so well with the general population and they would have jumped at the chance of changing home in their desired location .....
.....
but of course we all know that was complete and utter bollocks .....
BTW, starting the process of doing a swap with someone FIVE MINUTES walk from me
so it can work
There is housing development going on but not in the affordable range... where I live one of the parks has been built on and now has a private housing estate (has its own school), nearby is a former-MOD site which now has £500k - £1 million homes dotted on it (mini mansions)
Council going on about demolishing post-war tower blocks for decades now, trouble is theres absolutely nowhere to move all the people living in them to.. and its only getting worse as victims of London's social cleansing trickle down to the area
The tax/subsidy or w/e they are dressing it up as these days was a farce from the get go and should never had made it in
To save money paid by the tax payer.
Expecting people on benefits not to live in premises bigger than what they need is not a bad thing. However, Government should assist people to move.
Tory instinct is contempt towards anybody needing state benefits, so they first demonise them, so that "hard working taxpayers" feel that they're being ripped off, and feel that same contempt, then they can start to remove them with impunity by making it harder or impossible to claim them.
It isn't about saving money, it is purely ideological to deter people from claiming welfare toward a goal to potentially abolish working age benefits. Nothing more.
Number of households effected
DWP 2012 660,000, with 620,000 remain counted when effected (the other 40,000 were on partial HB)
Further fall in numbers caused by people taking action before affected, social housing landlords changing practices in letting of housing to reduce underoccupation, some changes in who is permitted a "spare" room
May 2013 547,341
August 2013 522,905 (11.1% of all social rented)
So underoccupying households affected by the penalty has gone from an estimate of 620,000 to 522,905. A fall of 15.7% a fall of almost 100,000 households, and it is still falling.
The 4.5% figure is only for those who have downsized within the social sector it does not inclulde those who have moved out of the social sector. So in reality the figure is higher.
The 41% is difficulty in letting larger properties the report does not state it is soley due to the bedroom tax, and the national void property rate shows no difference to before the bedroom tax. So in reality no difference.
previous rates of downsizing were under 0.5% of all tenants downsizing in a year
19% of affected tenants have registered for downsizing,
Some areas have achieved downsizing rates within the social sector of almost 16%.
Around a third of developing landlords have altered their build plans as a result of RSRS or the Benefit Cap in order to build more one bedroom homes and/or fewer larger homes
The discretionary housing fund remains not fully allocated, there appears to be sufficient funding for those who are in need and genuinely unable rather than unwilling to pay the bedroom tax.
Only 18% of affected households are in part-time or full-time paid employment. So 81% are working age households where no one works.
Very few affected claimants have taken a lodger. A frequently given reason was concerns around sharing their home
20% of those affected have paid nothing, they are either refusing to pay or unable to pay.
Most people don't seem to understand that though, so cheer it on. Not realising they are next.
Thanks Mark - appreciated.
That was after all the whole point if the poor little landlords have empty properties then perhaps they need to reduce the rent. This is what happens in business - you charge too then people do not buy,
For too long Landlords have used the Exchequer as a source of too easy profits.
People like you have been saying this since the coalition came to power, that the evil Tories wanted to abolish the welfare state, that they wanted to shut down the NHS and the biggest claim that has been pushed over and over is that they want rid of the minimum wage.
That has to be my favourite one actually, the constant claim that they will get rid of it 'soon' then when it doesn't happen the time frame just changes and the same tired phrases come out. The minimum wage hasn't been got rid of, there are no plans to get rid of it, but every time a Tory back bencher comes out with a private members bill wanting to get rid of the minimum wage, suddenly the entire party is behind it and that just shows the Tories are evil. Then the bill fails completely (which is ignored) and the cycle begins again, 'within the nex (random time frame) the Tories will get of the minimum wage, you mark my words!'.
Target rents in the social sector are now dictated by central government, and actual rents and the target rent are being increased each year due to central goverment diktat to make social housing rents closer to market rents.
The central government is increasing its own housing benefit bill by getting the social landlords to increase their rents.
Please explain how it is a tax.
I do wonder if lefties say its a tax to deliberately mislead other people, or if they just genuinely haven't got two brain cells to rub together to realize it's not a tax.