General Chat

after the bedroom tax the torys have now stopped legal aid for Debt Problems or Benefits Problems (except for a few cases involving the Upper Tribunal).
more details here
http://www.communitylawpartnership.co.uk/noticeboard/news/158-legal-aid-is-changing :-(

Good.

It is all very well having all these handouts from public money, but at the end of the day it is Joe Public who ends up having to pay and I for one can't afford it.

So, if the benefits agency screws up your benefit - not an uncommon occurence - you're stuffed.

If your landlord refuses to return your deposit - you're stuffed.
In the future, it shouldnt be called a deposit, it's an extra payment you make, on top of your rent, in order to have somewhwere to live - because you're (according to the tories) too 'fickle' to have earned enough to buy your own home.

Your rent is suddenly put up to an unreasonable amount. Tough luck (see above)

hope your life doesnt go belly up and you find yourself in the position to need help
i dont at the moment but am very aware that life can turn round and bite you on the bum

As usual he worse off are getting hit as the government and the media keep all the attention on benefit claimants and benefit cheats and on immigrants and off of the bankers, the super rich and themselves

i am not against the bedroom tax
it right that people who have had cheep rents for years
should down size to make room for those
who need the bigger houses now
but wonder where all this smaller accomadation
is going to come from as theres a lack of it
so maybe if they are on the list to down size
they should not have to pay the tax

I think you've got a point there, Joy. There can't be too many 1 bedroomed council properties around, so it does seem unfair to tax those who show they are willing to downsize.

I agree with the reduction in benefits for people in social housing "if they refuse" to move to a more suitable property but only when their is a more suitable property available

maggiewinchester, The answer to getting your deposit back is to only rent from reputable landlords/letting agencies

In England and Wales, if you rent your home on an assured shorthold tenancy that started after 6 April 2007, your landlord must place your deposit in one of the following tenancy deposit protection (TDP) schemes:

Deposit Protection Service
MyDeposits
Tenancy Deposit Scheme
Capita Tenancy Deposit Protection
Deposit Protection Service Insured

https://www.gov.uk/tenancy-deposit-protection

Roy

...but they can still lie and get it back...

For private landlords it is not a paying proposition to build 1 bed flats except conversions in Greater London. Just look at, say, Leeds if you doubt this.

Social landlords have to achieve a certain population density and in any case are not in a position to add much to single bed housing stock. Most of what they do have is taken up by pensioners with long waiting lists.

Thus the bedroom tax amounts to nothing much more than a cut in housing benefit as it applies whether alternative property is available or not.

It is simply not true that there is a vast army of "benefit scroungers" determined to live high on the hog at taxpayers expense. Those who believe it to be true spend far too much time reading such rubbish as the Daily Snail and XP as well as assuming that social housing areas are full of fugitives from road wars. They should get out more, off their soapbox and off the sofa.

What is absolutely true is that the changes in housing benefit including payment direct to tenants is going to turn the private landlord business model upside down. It will also have a very negative impact on social landlords.

50 years after "Cathy Comes Home" we are about to go full circle.

The reason that the social welfare bill keeps going up is the state pension which is far and away the largest part of welfare spending. The math is simple - more and more baby boomer pensioners living longer and longer. Maybe removal of the heating allowance would do the trick getting thousands more to freeze to death.

Bring on the clowns.

Well written, Rollo

technically its not a tax but a benefit cut

Try working all your life to buy a house.........then have to go into residential care and the whole job lot ends up being given to the government.....when someone without the house gets the same residential care without paying a penny.

Life ain't fair sometimes on anyone and nor is the grass always greener.

I could not agree more with what Muffy says!!

Just a thought, My daughter had to rent a house "Private rented" and when she was made redundant so had to receive benefits her housing benefit would not cover the rent and she had to pay the shortfall out of her benefits, it was around £60 per month, She was told that housing benefit was set according to her needs and she was in a 3 bed house but only needed a two bed roomed house, That was 7 years ago so whats changed?

Why has this only now become a problem?

I seems to me that some people in council houses to some extent have been having a free ride

Roy

The perception of how the cake is cut is far removed from reality.

In fact, the actual number of bankers earning large bonuses is very small, so whilst it is politically a hot potato, the amounts of money we are talking about is a drop in the ocean when it comes to the amount spent on benefits and other public spending.

This year non pension welfare benefits alone cost £115,000,000,000 which equates to £1800 spend per head of population, so if the total of bank bonuses paid was £1,000,000,000 and all this is put towards welfare it would reduce the cost to £1785 per head of population. Hardly spectacular.

The fact is that under the last government, public spending was allowed to rise. Welfare payments alone doubled in ten years whereas prices and average income for those working only rose by a third.

And as far as the super rich are concerned the top 20% earners already contribute to 80% of all taxes collected. Perhaps they should pay even more? 85%? 90%? 95%?

The 'bedroom tax' isn't a tax at all, it is a minus tax to those who already pay tax.

As Roy has said, reducing benefits where there is spare capacity must be the right thing to do and I know the main social housing provider in my city is assisting those affected to move to more appropriate accommodation. Lack of one beds isn't an issue.

If you don't want to move then your choice, pay the difference, 14% cut in current benefit for one unused room, 25% for more.

the housing ass my wife works for have no 1 and 2 bedroom properties available
when we were out and about today we past a large area of cleared ground where council flats used to be i said that could be used to build load of 1 and 2 bedroom properties to which she replied there is no money available for social house building

re benefit payments
a lot of the benefits are paid to working families to make their pay up to a living wage

Excellent post Rollo, my opinion is that this governments plan is to take us back to when Marquess of Salisbury was Prime Minister and Queen Victoria was on the throne :-|

And if you are unemployed with a mortgage to pay, you get no housing benefit at all!

Been there done that and it was no fun :-(

Luckily it was for only 2 months and we had a very understanding mortgage company

Why not scrap the Social payments altogether - then everyone pay for there own health schemes, schooling, University's etc., and bailouts to Industry and Commerce, lets us go back to the good old days of the 1800 and early 1900's.
Make the Tories Happy...........