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Appealing the Bedroom Tax
Comments
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I do agree that debt plays a part. Are you able to offer token payments until you find work?
What would happen if you stopped paying sky and your phone? They would cancel the subscriptions and then you could offer nominal payments until you are back on your feet. I don't know how it works as I avoid debt myself but hopefully you will get some advice on the debt free boards. If it was me though, I would tell them to cancel and cancel the direct debits as the children would be the focus of my importance.
It's not easy, especially where there is debt involved and I genuinely hope you find a job soon.
It has to be said though, if you can manage, and you are in debt, why are other families shouting out that they cannot cope? How much debt have people allowed themselves to get into? Housing priority over debt, though.
I have had to really manage my debt due to past mistakes and believe me I will be paying for a several decades. That is another issue.
If you stopped paying for things like sky and mobile, trust me they don’t let you pay it off. It goes off and debt is passed to debt management companies and it's listed as a default. It's not an ideal way to go about things.
As for other families I don’t know where they spend the money but as said I am not lazy or daft and luckily in very good health. We got rid of the car although this was because the job I was in used to leave me with a car every night and weekend. I live half a mile from the children’s school so we walk and its all through a housing estate so no roads to cross. The town I live in is exactly a mile away so I usually cycle and I don’t mind making tow or three trips a day if needed with a back pack full of shopping. I have parents who live seven miles away so if I need a car I can walk to my dad’s and borrow his (named on his insurance) and its a nice walk down the whitegate way.
I am very careful when it comes to food bills and I’m a good cook. I can’t always buy fresh but things like frozen veg are good alternatives. As for luxuries we both don’t smoke, my partner has given up recently and is finding it hard, My partner doesn’t drink at all, I limit myself to £5 over the weekend during the week my idea of treating myself is a bottle of pop at night while I watch telly. The other thing I do have is Sky and to be fair we get our money’s worth out of it. We don’t eat out and days out are simple. There won’t be a holiday until I’m back in work.
I do save a little for things like kids shoes, last two months I have had to buy 4 pairs of kids shoes. The one thing I am scared about is if something big needs spending like a cooker or washing machine as savings wont cover that yet.
Having worked the majority of my adult life and now that I am out of work it amazes me how much money people simply !!!! away. The amount of times we used to go to town, blow £20 or £30 and then have !!!!!! all to show for it.
There are many savings people could make. However some people can’t be helped and IMO if you gave most people a £1000 a week they would still spend it and claim that they have nothing left. That goes for people across the board. Across the way from me they have just built 16 houses some costing £200,000 plus You speak to them and they will say that they are skint I don’t tell them they should have spent £100k on a house in the crap part of town though.Bedroom Tax / Spare room subsidy / Housing Benefit Reduction - It's the same thing, get over it.0 -
I absolutely agree with you that it should have been fair across the board. Absolutely.
The family who are paying for three beds, why not refuse the three bed and say they only want a two bed like their neighbour?
Why was a three bed ok when they were not paying for it, but it's no longer ok now?
It should have been fair. It should have been a fair amount across the board but, right now, it isn't. Families who receive a fair whack need to actually realise how lucky they are rather than complaining that they don't have enough. I don't think I've ever seen a family poster accept that they get a fair whack. Why is that?
Paying a small amount for having a roof over the heads of children, why is such an anathema?
Which why I don't understand why people support a cut that is very unfair and isn't even cost effective. I agree people will have to find a way around it and I will continue to support those who I think have a case to appeal.
I don't disagree with the CTS either except once again they have made a pigs ear of it. Why not just have introduced the 10% charge across the board with the existing exemptions? Simple, easy to administer done and dusted, fair everyone contributing to the services they receive.
As if LA's haven't got enough to do without getting involved in a ridulous amount of new schemes etc. half of which will probably turnout to have to be re-done.
Both a complete waste of tax payers money.The most wasted day is one in which we have not laughed.0 -
The family who are paying for three beds, why not refuse the three bed and say they only want a two bed like their neighbour?
Because refusing the offer of a property would, more often than not, mean losing priority on the waiting list and effectively going to the back of the queue. Generally in social housing, the best policy for the potential tenant is to take what is offered, there is not much element of choice. That is part of the reason why tenants end up in under-occupied housing, it is what was available, and deemed suitable, when they reached the top of the waiting list.0 -
It is also a very divisive policy and that is what is demonstrated here on this forum.
Neighbor against neighbor
disabled person against disabled
single person against single person
The list goes on.................The most wasted day is one in which we have not laughed.0 -
Because refusing the offer of a property would, more often than not, mean losing priority on the waiting list and effectively going to the back of the queue. Generally in social housing, the best policy for the potential tenant is to take what is offered, there is not much element of choice. That is part of the reason why tenants end up in under-occupied housing, it is what was available, and deemed suitable, when they reached the top of the waiting list.
Also at the time it wouldn't have made any difference would it ? They were in work had two children of different sexes so in the near future will need 3 beds anyway.
It's about allocation of properties as well the system is crazy, I've told the story before about a family I knew in work got a 3 bed with 2 boys and not a low income either transferred from a 2 bed. Yet I know a young family again working with two young children struggling to pay the rent in a 2 bed flat privately been on the waiting list for at least 3 years and they are literally around the corner from each other!The most wasted day is one in which we have not laughed.0 -
You pair are just so childish aren't you?
The cases I was referring to that I KNOW personally are all in hospital beds, I also know of other cases that are not. What is so difficult to understand about that?
Up until this point the rest of us were having an adult debate so run along and play please
The most wasted day is one in which we have not laughed.0 -
As someone who remembers when it was commonplace for familes of 5 , 2 parents , 1 f/t working , 1 p/t, with 3 kids aged between 7 and 10 all having to share 1 bedroom , in a tenement , how our feelings of entitlement and what constitutes poverty have changed. There was none of the present generous welfare systems in place back then.
I'm glad living conditions and standards have improved, but as a nation we can no longer afford it.
Choose now whether to accept some small sacrifice for the present time. Or refuse to let a government make changes, unfair as some might seem, and gamble the future of your grandchildren to be faced with worse conditions than I grew up in . In the knowledge they're ill prepared to deal with it.
The economic time clock is ticking.0 -
How dare you make a sensible suggestion?
Dont you know that common sense is not allowed on this site.
If you want the common sense you seek applied, then you need to start with yourself and use some.Disabled people have become easy scapegoats in this age of austerity.
'Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are'. (Benjamin Franklin)0
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