How can they get away with causing us so much grief?

Copied from the facebook page ‘Bedroom tax…Think its unfair…join the fight here’, 4th December 2013

had a scare today due to manchester city council via a tex message saying to phone the local housing asap as urgent , as i was out at the time i thought there had been a flood or fire at my flat so rang them while still out . Me panicking asked them what was so urgent, and they said i was £600+ overdue in my rent.

After getting my breath back i asked how they come to this conclusion , her reply was no rent had been paid on my property since september , I said this was the first i had heard and couldn’t understand it as my circumstances hadnt changed.  She said that a letter was being sent out to me today saying they were proceeding to take me to court seeking possession. I became very upset on phone and she said quite strongly that i had better get on to the benifits office to see why rent had been stopped.

She did say that she had recieved £20 a fortnite from me which she couldnt understand why, i explained it was the bedroom tax for my spare bedroom which she claimed she knew nothing of . I tried explaining that i am disabled and that in sep i had applied for dhp (discretionary Housing Payment)  but hadnt yet got a reply and i was paying it until i heard any different from rent people.

Eventually she put me through to the benefits office where i enquired why they hadnt been paying the rent to find out that cos i had put in for dhp for some reason my rent had been suspended.  I was very upset , after her rattling around in the filing cabinet for some time she came back on phone and said they will sort out the rent and contact the local housing that the rent would be re enstated from today.  How can they get away with causing so much grief to us?

Councils face £25m loss through bedroom tax

Local authorities saw rent arrears in Scotland increase by £2 million during April, compared with the same period last year, following the introduction of the bedroom tax.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities says that, if the trend continues, the under-occupation penalty will result in arrears of about £25 million per year.

A survey by COSLA found that, with the exception of one, all councils with housing stock have experienced an increase in rent arrears due to under occupancy.

Four out of five Scottish local authorities reported receiving half or less of the rent due from affected tenants at the end of May, while 60 per cent said they had received 40 per cent or less of rent due. These results were based on responses from 20 of the 26 councils with their own housing stock.

The under-occupation penalty, which came into force on 1 April, reduces housing benefit by 14 per cent for working-age tenants with one extra bedroom and by 25 per cent for those with two or more spare bedrooms. COSLA estimates 82,500 households in Scotland are affected by the policy.

Three-quarters of local authorities told COSLA that non-payment of rent following the introduction of the bedroom tax is directly responsible for the increase in their rent arrears.

The survey also found Scottish councils had received more than 22,000 requests for discretionary housing payments since advising tenants of revised housing benefit awards. By the end of May, DHPs had been awarded to 44 per cent of applicants, totalling £2.2 million. The payments are intended to help vulnerable households that are struggling as a result of welfare reforms.

David O’Neill, president of COSLA, which released the survey to mark 100 days since the introduction of the bedroom tax, said: ‘We always said that any saving to the UK Treasury would be reflected in additional costs and financial pressures for tenants and councils. Unfortunately that is exactly what is now happening.’

by Kate Youde in ‘Inside Housing’, July 8th 1913:  http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/councils-face-%C2%A325m-loss-through-bedroom-tax/6527672.article#.UeLKkduZGjk.facebook

Rent arrears soar in Birmingham as bedroom tax bites

Huge rise in social housing tenants struggling to pay their bills

The number of Birmingham social housing tenants in rent arrears has almost doubled following the introduction of bedroom tax.

Around 14,000 saw their housing benefit cut in April at a time when 2,816 were already behind with their rent.

That has soared to 5,390 in just three months – a 91 per cent rise.

The benefit cut came down on those who have spare bedrooms and is designed to encourage families to down-size, freeing up larger homes.

Birmingham’s Labour cabinet member, Coun John Cotton, said: “Sadly, the dire warnings about the impact of this reform are now coming to pass and, as expected, many of the most vulnerable people in Birmingham are struggling to pay the new charges. Once again the local authority is left to pick up the pieces.

“We are doing everything we can to provide a safety net, but the number of affected people in arrears has almost doubled in just three months. I can only see that situation getting worse.

“As we have consistently stressed, there is a shortage of one-bedroom properties in Birmingham and across the country, so people are now left in properties they can no longer afford.”

He said that each statistic represents a household in crisis.

Coun Cotton added: “We’re talking about families and individuals across Birmingham being driven to despair by a cruel charge that isn’t even doing what it set out to do.”

Households that have a spare room have seen an average £14 a week reduction in housing benefit.

Solihull grandmother Stephanie Bottrill, who walked into the path of a lorry on the M6, has become a focus for the anti-bedroom tax lobby. The mum-of-two and grandmother was told she would have to find £80 a month in rent because she lived alone in a three-bedroom house.

She left a note making it clear she could not go on after being forced from her home of 18 years by the ‘bedroom tax’.

The council has set up a £2 million discretionary payments fund to help those in difficulty. But it is feared demand could be too great as 2,000 people applied for help during the first two weeks of April alone.

July 3rd in the Birmingham Post, by Neil Elks. http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/incoming/birmingham-social-housing-rent-arrears-4811654

‘Affordable rent’: worst predictions come true

Red Brick

Following a Freedom of Information request, in October last year Red Brick revealed that 82,000 social rented homes were likely to be ‘converted’ to the much more expensive ‘affordable rent’ regime in a desperate attempt to fund the Government’s flagship programme.

A new independent report on the affordable rent programme by Future of London shows that, at December 2012, there were 543 lettings of new build affordable rent homes in the Capital but 2,571 conversions from traditional social rent – nearly 5 conversions for every single new build home so far. It effectively means that these homes have had an imposed rent increase of 40-50%.

Because the Government stipulated that ‘affordable rent’ homes should be let on the same basis as ‘social rent’, the inevitable has happened: new tenants are even more reliant on housing benefit. Not only have social rented homes been hijacked but also the pain will be felt through increased…

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Universal Credit to be docked to claw back rent arrears

A mechanism to automatically recover rent arrears is to be introduced alongside the direct payment of housing benefit to tenants.

Details released by the government last week explain that under its universal credit reform landlords will be able to contact the Department for Work and Pensions to request benefits designed to cover housing costs are paid to them once a prescribed level of rent arrears is reached.

At this point the department will also start to recover the arrears by docking universal credit payments.

from ‘Inside Housing’. Read more here: http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/tenancies/universal-credit-docked-to-recover-rent-arrears/6527269.article

In its response to a communities and local government select committee report on the implementation of universal credit, the government says deductions can be up to 5 per cent under existing laws, but it ‘is considering whether this level is appropriate for universal credit, or if it should be increased in the future’.

Under universal credit, which is being rolled out widely from the autumn, a range of benefits including housing benefit will be combined into a single monthly payment. This will mean many social housing tenants receive benefits intended to cover their rent payments themselves, instead of the money going direct to their landlord.

In its original report, published in April, the select committee raised concerns about direct payment under universal credit, saying housing associations could face ‘increased rent arrears and collection costs’.

In its response to the report the Communities and Local Government department says the government is committed to the move to direct payment of housing benefit, but it also want to ensure universal credit is introduced ‘in a way that protects the finances of social landlords’.

Leeds: 2,800 hit by bedroom tax

Growing numbers of council tenants are struggling to pay their bills following changes to the housing benefit system, city leaders have warned.

New figures from Leeds City Council show that 2,800 tenants receiving housing benefit who had clear rent accounts before the change, which came into effect in April, have now fallen behind on their payments. The Government changed the rules on housing benefit so that tenants judged to have one or more spare bedrooms lose some of their payments.

Ministers argue the move is needed to discourage people from staying in council or housing association properties with more room than they need.

But opponents argue there are not enough smaller properties for families who currently live in “under-occupied” homes.

Peter Gruen, council executive board member responsible for neighbourhoods, planning and support services, said: “The overall figures speak for themselves; over 50 per cent of tenants affected by under-occupation who had clear rent accounts before these changes were brought in are now falling into rent arrears after just seven weeks, and through no fault of their own.

“We predicted before the changes came into place that there would be increasing numbers of tenants going into rent arrears and the difficulty that councils will face.

“Since under-occupation was introduced, we as a council are having to collect an extra £78,500 each week from tenanted properties.”

Coun Gruen added: “We knew this was going to be a difficult time for people affected and, therefore, have already committed further resources to provide targeted support for tenants affected by the changes, and also ensure rent is collected for the benefit of all tenants.”

Just a few weeks into the current financial year, the council is already facing rent arrears of £138,000.

James reed in the Yorkshire Evening Post, 9/6/13.

Rent increases and bedroom tax, 29th April 2013

Caroline EgglestoneBedroom Tax…think its unfair…join the fight here

So if benefits are frozen at 1% increase, and public sector workers haven’t had a pay rise in 5 years, yet the rents are continuing to rise at approx 5% and BT isn’t abolished, how the hell with rising costs is anyone working or claiming benefits going to be able to pay BT in two years if we are all struggling now? If we can’t get rid of BT we should also be fighting rent increases.

 

Caroline Egglestoneposted to  “Bedroom Tax…think its unfair…join the fight here” facebook page 29/3/2013