housing benefit reduction. a solution but the council is blocking it!

lighting_up_the_chalice

clemmatis wrote: »

Home Options shows 22 one bedroom properties available now.

According to Newport Council (in February) there are 1800 households affected and just 24 one and two bedroom properties available to rent.

And another 20 odd next week, and the week after.... and so on. Such is the nature of a market as dynamic as housing.

clemmatis wrote: »

The DWP's own analysis for England and Wales shows a surplus of three bedroom properties and a shortage of one bedroom properties ('surplus" relative to the number of people receiving HB).

Perhaps providers will slacken the qualifying criteria enough so that those unaffected by the bedroom tax may be allocated those larger properties.

lighting_up_the_chalice

clemmatis wrote: »

The DWP's own analysis for England and Wales shows a surplus of three bedroom properties and a shortage of one bedroom properties ('surplus" relative to the number of people receiving HB).

Interestingly, Cardiff City Council still has a more traditional allocations method, rather than CBL. As such, their property lets aren't open to the same scrutiny. However, they will sometimes advertise difficult to let properties which are pretty much available to anyone who shows an interest. They have only one advertised at the moment.... and you will never guess what it is!!

http://www.cardiffhousing.co.uk/index.php?section=accommodation&option=social_available_properties&search=true

Yup.... That's a 1 bed flat. Some shortage.

wozearly

nannytone wrote: »

they cant live in my flat and pay!
why is it oj for me to struggle but not for someone else?
there is no homeless problem here .... we have surplus social/private housing.

Most local authorities don't have enough social housing stock and, from a bedroom tax perspective, the surplus they have is often the 'wrong' size (which is probably one of the issues you're facing). The HA I work for has a distinct lack of 1 and 2 bedroom properties if we were going to try to 'correctly' house everyone receiving housing benefit.

On the note of the council prioritising someone who is homeless, that's to be expected - being homeless places you pretty near the top of the priority list, (rightly or wrongly) above people who are in social housing but may not be able to afford their current property after the housing benefit cut.

The HA may not push hard to get you moved to the 1 bed and the homeless person moved to your 2 bed instead, because for them its just exchanging one person who can't really afford to live in a 2 bed for someone else who would be affected by the bedroom tax and even less likely to be able to afford to live there.

You have a few options available, although I accept most have downsides:

1. Wait and see if anything comes up in social housing in your area for mutual exchange and/or bid on 1 beds until you get one, but keep paying the £20 p/wk in the interim.

2. Look at areas further afield (provided those local authorities don't have the increasingly common 'you must have a connection to the local area' clause in their bidding criteria) for a 1 bed property in social housing - accepting that this would be a particularly difficult and disruptive change for you personally.

3. Look for something privately rented in the local area / further afield that's within the LHA rent cap, or that would cost you less than £20 p/wk, and accept the lower security of tenure on the open market.

4. Try to persuade your HA to permanently reclassify your property as a 1 bedroom property (even though its not). Very unlikely they'll agree, because the rent would have to be dropped to an appropriate 1 bed level, and the property will have been funded on the assumption it would return the rent of a 2 bedroom property over its lifetime. I know of no HA that's agreed to do this in an individual case, but you can always ask...

5. Try to persuade your HA to reclassify another property as a 1 bedroom property (even though its not). This may have more traction - some HAs have done this when they've had a surplus of 2/3 beds as a method of artificially increasing their 1 bed supply. The catch? They've been properties that were difficult to let in the first place - meaning there's likely to be something wrong with them and/or the area.

6. Ask if the HA is willing to place someone else requiring a 1 bedroom property in the second bedroom in your property, with the two of you becoming joint tenants. Might not be workable, but its something you could discuss.

7. Ask if the HA is willing to give you permission to sub-let the second bedroom in your property, then getting a lodger in to the second bedroom. This would keep the tenancy in your name alone and you'd have freedom of choice over who you let the room to. Several HAs have indicated they're open minded to this as a solution for specific cases, even if not as a general rule.

8. Apply to your local authority for discretionary housing payment (DHP), provided you can evidence that you genuinely can't afford the £20 p/wk from your income. It may not be a permanent solution, as DHP is discretionary (clue's in the name), its being spent quickly and comes out of LA budgets rather than a central pot (if I recall correctly), but it would give you breathing space to pursue the best permanent solution for you without wrecking your income in the meantime.

clemmatis

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

And another 20 odd next week, and the week after.... and so on. Such is the nature of a market as dynamic as housing.

Yes -- presumably. Or at least, that could be inferred. So?

Perhaps providers will slacken the qualifying criteria enough so that those unaffected by the bedroom tax may be allocated those larger properties.

Well why not? To those that have, shall be given, does seem to be the new ethical rule.

Confuseddot

If we have a surplus of 3 bed houses then surely these could be converted to house shares ... Ideally everyone wants their own flat but sometimes want and needs don't match

wozearly

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

However, they will sometimes advertise difficult to let properties which are pretty much available to anyone who shows an interest. They have only one advertised at the moment.... and you will never guess what it is!!

Yup.... That's a 1 bed flat. Some shortage.

The fact that one specific area has one specific type of property available at one specific time isn't a particularly good indicator of the wider picture across the UK.

Speaking nationally, there's a shortage of 1 bedroom social housing properties and a surplus of 3/4 bedroom properties. I believe this imbalance is also true for the private rental sector.

That can make it incredibly difficult for people who are trying to downsize to avoid the bedroom tax, because the properties aren't necessarily available right now - and there's likely to be competition for the property from other people in a similar situation.

mazza111

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

You call it BS... I call it a simple statement of fact.

If they haven't got whatever you want, then you can't have it. Delusional rants about fuel costs and 5 minute journeys will do nothing to change that fact.

Course it's BS. If I had to move out of town how the hell do you thing my dd would manage? Would we just get social care in to help her? Don't you realise that will cost a lot more than what the difference in her rent is? Not to mention she doesn't want strangers to help her shower. Which I can totally understand. I wouldn't want a stranger helping me either.

And it's not a delusional rant. As you say it's a statement of fact. It's gone from costing me £0/week to go to her twice a day, to costing me around £20 to go round 3 times a day, with her just moving 5 mins away.


As said a thousand times before, we have surplus 2 bedroom properties. We have a shortage of 1 and 3+ bedroom properties. So why shouldn't those who need them occupy a 2 bedroom?

Dunroamin. I know you made the exception for age related properties, but that's what most of our 1 bedroom accommodation is. We have a row of 1 bedroom properties, that the dd was in before she moved. Think there's about 20 in total (trying to count them in my head from when I was a postie on that round) on the ground floor, which aren't really suitable for those who need wheelchairs or other mobility aids. It's about 80% full of elderly people.

lighting_up_the_chalice

clemmatis wrote: »

Yes -- presumably. Or at least, that could be inferred. So?

Assuming that to be the case, you have to decide what is a "reasonable" timescale for any person to wait for social housing. As we are talking about bedroom tax, a change that was first mooted 18 months ago, 18 months would seem a reasonable timeframe. So, if the 400 units you mention are the weekly total for Wales (Newports population is about 5% of the population of Wales, so that equates), then in an 18 month period there would be over 31,000 one bed units available, more than the total number of SH households in Wales and enough to accommodate 10% of the population.

clemmatis wrote: »

Well why not? To those that have, shall be given, does seem to be the new ethical rule.

Taken, surely. Those who fund their own rent have been paying a bedroom tax for decades.

lighting_up_the_chalice

mazza111 wrote: »

Course it's BS. If I had to move out of town how the hell do you thing my dd would manage? Would we just get social care in to help her? Don't you realise that will cost a lot more than what the difference in her rent is? Not to mention she doesn't want strangers to help her shower. Which I can totally understand. I wouldn't want a stranger helping me either.

And it's not a delusional rant. As you say it's a statement of fact. It's gone from costing me £0/week to go to her twice a day, to costing me around £20 to go round 3 times a day, with her just moving 5 mins away.


As said a thousand times before, we have surplus 2 bedroom properties. We have a shortage of 1 and 3+ bedroom properties. So why shouldn't those who need them occupy a 2 bedroom?

If there is a surplus of 2 beds, why not live with your dd?

clemmatis

lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »

Interestingly, Cardiff City Council still has a more traditional allocations method, rather than CBL. As such, their property lets aren't open to the same scrutiny. However, they will sometimes advertise difficult to let properties which are pretty much available to anyone who shows an interest. They have only one advertised at the moment.... and you will never guess what it is!!

http://www.cardiffhousing.co.uk/index.php?section=accommodation&option=social_available_properties&search=true

Yup.... That's a 1 bed flat. Some shortage.

Yup. It's a one bed flat all right. If you'd clicked to find out more/apply you'd have found only people aged 60 or over may inquire.

Still, there is 1 one bedroom difficult to let flat in Cardiff (it is not a new listing and there have been no more recent ones), and perhaps despite what they say, anybody may apply. And now the bedroom tax is here, perhaps someone will.

By the way: "a (relative) shortage" (attested to by the DWP) =/= zero availability. To put it another way: one hard to let flat. Some glut.