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Written by rosalind renshaw

Housing associations in the North-East of England are warning that they do not have enough smaller homes for thousands of tenants who will be displaced by the new ‘bedroom tax’.

They say that up to 50,000 households in the region could be affected and could have to be moved into private rental accommodation.

One of the housing associations, Coast & Country, estimates it has 2,500 tenants who are under-occupying their homes, but only 16 spare one-bed houses.

The ‘bedroom tax’ is being introduced next April and will be an under-occupation charge for people living in social housing who have a spare room.

Tenants will have to move to a smaller home or accept a cut in benefits. The Government has said that this will be set at 14% for one extra bedroom and 25% for two or more spare bedrooms.

Even households where every bedroom is used will be hit, because under the new rules, children of different genders will be expected to share bedrooms until the age of ten, and if they are the same gender, up to the age of 16.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that the bedroom tax will affect  670,000 households across Britain – approximately one-third of tenants on housing benefit who currently live in the social sector.

Monica Burns, North-East manager for the National Housing Federation, said: “These new rules are futile and unfair. Housing associations in the North-East have always been encouraged by Government to build bigger homes so families could live in the same homes for life and didn’t have to move when they had children. And as land was cheaper here that made good sense. Now those same tenants and housing associations are being penalised for having the wrong type of house.
 
“The welfare bill could even go up as a result. Many families on benefits will have no choice but to up sticks and move to private rented accommodation. The Government will then have to pay a higher rate of housing benefit to cover their rents for smaller homes. These are the consequences of a blanket top-down policy that failed to listen to local people.”

Iain Sim, chief executive of Coast & Country, said: “We are very concerned about this and the impact it will have on our tenants. We currently have around 2,500 under-occupying tenants who face losing up to £25 a week, but we only have 16 one-bedroom properties available for them to move in to.

"This will potentially push more people into poverty.”

Comments

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    I agree with what a lot of people have said.....this ridiculous and unkind tax will never find its target in the bedrooms of rich MP's!! It was ALWAYS a massive mistake to sell off our council houses. WHATEVER NEXT? A RETURN TO DAYLIGHT TAX? Shall we start bricking up our windows now so we can prepare ourselves for lives in hovels and slums?
    Let's think, what else could the government tax......how about an armchair tax? A BED tax? A lavatory tax? One bum, one loo!! My husband works like a navvy, we eat the cheapest food, wear secondhand clothes and have NEVER had a holiday. There is nothing left to squeeze! Which snobbish MP was it who once publicly referred to the general public as "the mob"? It seemed to say it all somehow.....!

    • 30 December 2013 18:03 PM
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    • 04 April 2013 12:54 PM
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    • 04 April 2013 12:53 PM
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    i think this is a joke, i know someone who recently moved from a two bed into a three bed is a single mother to 1 young child so she has an EXTRA bedroom and rents privately to the cost of slightly over £500 a month.

    why isn't the government targeting these people as well, someone who needs a three bed is being deprived.

    Absolutely ridiculous law that doesn't hit all types of housing!

    • 15 January 2013 17:39 PM
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    If private homeowners are forced to take in strangers, who will do the Criminal Record Checks to prove none of the prospective "lodgers" aren't criminals? How would this affect House Contents Insurance premiums? If this typically daft loony-left PC idea ever got implemented I've got £100 that says it'll be less than 12 months before we started hearing horror stories about homeowners coming back from a 2-week holiday (with no choice but to leave the lodger(s) unsupervised free use of their home) to find the lodger(s) gone - with all their house contents!

    • 23 November 2012 23:00 PM
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    In some ways this is a great idea,. think of thousands of oap's living in huge family homes,. alone,. complain they can not afford to keep warm,. cannot keep them clean or decorated,. then they can not cope with stairs, so they need a stair lift fitting in for them to cope,.
    Yes i know alot of those worked hard had big families and where the first tenant in there home,. but i would say please free up family homes,. think of thousands of families stuck in tiny private rented dumps because they no where else to go and no choice either,. time people where moved on if there home is too big,.
    time for the government to control the landlords money grabbing millionaires scheme of charging the hell they like and no one to regulate them,..... rich getting richer poor getting pooer,. like victorian age once more,.

    • 04 October 2012 12:13 PM
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    i thought it was only for people in high rent private accomidation i didnt think it was for us , im in a 3 bed with my wife my children have grown and moved away and come visit with my grandson ive been here near 20 yrs in a HA house , i cant move

    • 04 October 2012 11:08 AM
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    who is going to pay the CRB checks on people you have to invite into your home to make ends meet etc and im sure ~David Cameron could move to somewhere smaller couldnt he??sick people working, youngsters not being able to get jobs as older people are being forced to work , single parents leaving their kids to have to seek work etc then SS joining in to take much loved kids
    Time people stood up to this government and not leave it to a chosen few to fight back ..same old story that people will put the bullets there for someone else to fire and when they call for backup there is no one watching their backs!!
    Authorities, government etc are ruining peoples lives if you cant do it for you then do it for your kids ... Do it for the country !!

    • 03 October 2012 08:03 AM
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    Totally bonkers. This idea will cost more to implement than it will ever bring in. Its stupid to even imagine that it will make a pin prick in the national debt. In practical terms a one bedroom property is pretty much useless. Everyone is entitled to a spare room at least. The facility to house a home business, a hobby a place for visiting relatives. The spare room is an important social asset to so many people.
    I'd be more impressed if the Front Bench included the unoccupied rooms in their own vast mansions in this legislation

    • 03 October 2012 00:17 AM
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    some people are saying that its good because homeless people can share rooms but dont you realise that there is about 10 times the vacant properties than there are homeless people. So why are there still homeless people the reason is it doesnt pay to stop peoples suffering and thats all the goverment/bankers are bothered about. To them we are nothing but livestock and what do you do with live stock that cant make you money you kill it and thats what is happening with all the reforms. The reforms are not taking place to help the people. Wake up people stop allowing your fellow men and women to be victimised by unscrupulous wastes of space like cameron and his cronies

    • 01 October 2012 01:52 AM
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    i worked for 30yrs under the assumption that paying my tax would get me the help when i needed it, a contract! they can't just change a contract, all MP's have a spare 2nd home never mind spare room.. if they're looking for cuts, look closer to home!!!

    i also think turning the spare bedroom into a dining room is a good idea! an action group needs to be made so a clss action can happen, a decent barrister appointed to fight for everyone.
    with virtually zero single bedroom properties available, this is stupid, when i asked for a property, they knew i was single and gave me this 2 bedroom, i do have friends stay over occassinally, are the poor no longer allowed friends? doesn't support the gvmnts big society theory does it?

    • 29 June 2012 10:26 AM
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    avoid the tax by turning the spare room into a dining room?

    How does the government think I will be able to run my ebay business without a spare room?

    • 21 June 2012 14:14 PM
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    A reminder to some. Please remember that this is supposed to be a free country - not the old Soviet Union! People on Benifits should obviously be provided with just eneough to live reasonably - otherwise leave the rest alone - they have already provided for themselves and also pay for the provision of benifits..

    • 21 June 2012 11:01 AM
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    People should only receive enough benefit to pay for some of the cost of a suitable property for the number of people, they should always have to contribute something and if they choose to occupy a house that is bigger than their need then they pay more. Why should people keep a 3 or 4 bed house after their children have moved on, consider the new families looking for suitable housing.

    • 21 June 2012 09:29 AM
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    It has the basis of a great idea the problem will lie in it's correct implication. If they don't want to move instead of paying the tax could they opt in to a 'home-sharing' scheme to get an otherwise homeless person under 35 into one of their spare bedrooms. Win: Win. They are utilising the government's tax free bedroom allowance room let scheme They should be able to 'earn' this amount in addition to any other work or benefits. The housing benefit often isn't high enough on the under 35 room rate for commercial landlords so it could provide much needed additional accommodation.
    I think 'we're' in such a state, as a nation we need to look at every way of saving the country money, not everything is going to be instantly favourable and you will get the "call me thick but" type of reactions but seriously this could work on more than one level. I do agree 1 person 1 bedroom though, no enforced sharing at any age. It obviously has problems, if a couple have 2 bedrooms shouldn't that be allowable and not counted as a spare room although if they have a child together should they then get a 3rd room for the 'baby' as they are obviously a 'couple' and could share 2 beds between a 3 person family unit. I have an expectation there would be outrage where a single parent and one very young child if they were expected to manage with under 2 rooms that would not be workable in the long-term. This is good for genuinely 'spare' rooms 4 beds 2 elderly people perhaps, unfortunately that may then mean if they are grandparents they have no-where for the grandchildren to 'stay-over' but should benefits be providing for every scenario? In that case they would have to pay the tax to 'keep' the spare room.
    In my road there are a divorced couple living a few doors apart both in 3 bed houses so their 2 boys can live in either or both houses as they choose, isn't this madness? There is local animosity after their split they both got a property (they had one but got the second one for the ex-wife) each one now of which has 2 rooms empty 50% of time.

    • 21 June 2012 09:28 AM
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    Gawd almighty!...Bedroom Tax!

    What will the blind, deaf and dumb Civil Servants and Politicians come up with next. It shows the pure contempt held by our Lords and Masters for the populous, social tenants are held in no more regard than livestock to be farmed as they see fit. Why don't you do what you really want to and put them all in prison, I thought it was all about giving kids a real chance in live rather than compressing them into even more miserable lives than they have at the moment.

    No doubt a bedroom tax will also be levied on every home at some point including private home owners, I live in a 4 bedroom house with a Wife and small dog, Even though I am buying my own home I guess a bedroom tax could be applied to me if the idiots wanted to push that as well.

    As for opposite genders sharing the same bedroom, I was acutely aware of girls being different to boy even from the age of 7. Kids get dressed in bedrooms!!! I guess this also means then that single gender toilets should be merged up to the age of ten as well then...no difference!

    I bet the twat that came up with this idea lives in an under utilised private home.

    This shows clearly the true state of the nation we are now scrapping the barrel for taxation and cut back ideas this ranks along side all those other U turn's...laughable if it didn't affect real people's lives.

    Stop the crap and build more homes, Margaret Thatcher should hang her head in shame for selling off social housing to raise cash the way she did. Thatcherism started the slide to where we are now.

    ...get me on the first rocket out of here please!

    • 21 June 2012 09:02 AM
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    What a load of old rubbish.

    • 21 June 2012 08:33 AM
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