Month: January 2014

Landlords need to rethink the bedroom tax…sorry that assumes they think in the first place!

Just over a year ago I started writing in depth about the bedroom tax and a big part of that was to get tenants to appeal the bedroom tax decisions they received.  Social landlords did not like this appeal approach in the main, a tiny minority did, and illogically social landlords feared they would somehow lose money over this when in fact the complete opposite is true.

Has anyone seen or read a successful bedroom tax appeal where (a) the rent has reduced or (b) the HB has not increased?

No you haven’t as it doesn’t happen.  In many cases we have seen the landlord designated 3 bed property which councils in their expediency chose to accept be deemed a 2 bed property and in some even a 1 bed property.  Has the rent level reduced there? NO.  Has the landlord now received MORE in HB because of the successful appeals? YES!

So that begs three questions to address.

  • Firstly why are landlords still reluctant to advise tenants to appeal?
  • Secondly why the hell are they looking at reclassifying properties?
  • Thirdly, why the hell are landlords not advocating and supporting tenants to appeal?

If a tenant is successful at appeal the landlord gets more in Housing Benefit, its that simple.

If ever there is an example of how social landlords did not think the bedroom tax its that.  Landlords always benefit from successful appeals as does the tenant of course.  So what provider wouldn’t want to be on and be seen to be on the side of their customers?  again another example of a complete lack of thought and any semblance of good business practice.

Social landlords thought – for what reason God only knows – that if a property was ruled to have 2 and not 3 bedrooms that they would lose money yet that was never the case in any reality but still this bizarre and illogical notion persisted.

Just how did social landlords move from reading barrister opinions to say room size issues could not be ‘read across’ from the 1985 Housing Act in HB regulations to mean if a property at appeal is deemed a 2 bed not a 3 that they would lose money as the rent level would fall?  I can understand landlords believing a barristers opinion or even the CIH opinion that room size would NOT play a part but why did social landlords jump from this to we will lose money?  Its a total lack of thinking and a huge knowledge deficit in terms of HB regulations and councils powers within them that only allow a rent restriction IF the rent is unreasonably high.

But as we have seen the rent level difference nationally between a 3 bed and a 2 bed is £5.97 per week.  So a two bed plus boxroom is not worth £5.97 more per week than a straight 2 bed?  Again just another obvious example of a lack of thinking.  Moreover any social landlord in any area of the UK can look at the local choiced based lettings system and find 3 bed rents which are less than a 2 bed rent…and in the case of Liverpool two properties in the same street!!  So how would an appeal stating a property had one less room result in a rent reduction or a HB reduction?  Again the lack of thinking is there for all to see.

Reclassifying?  Just how bloody stupid is that idea!

If a landlord does reclassify down are they admitting that they have been overcharging all these years and leave themselves exposed to legal actions? Yes from both the tenant in the reclassifed properties but also from the council as the total of all these reclassification could see social landlords a the biggest benefit fraudsters in history!  Anyone still see reclassification as evidence of thought?

Yet such is the clamour for reclassification that (a) many landlords are still incurring cost sending outs staff to look at whether a bed would fit into an alleged bedroom, and (b) some councils such as Liverpool are flatly refusing to change any decision “unless the landlord reclassifies.”  Talk about landlords shooting themselves in the foot and especially since they have this other truly bizarre notion that the bedroom tax decision is anything at all to do with them.

The bedroom tax decision is an HB decision and HB is between the claimant who is the tenant and the council as decision maker.  It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the landlord and never has had even before April 2013.  The responsibility to claim HB has always been the claimants and not the landlord (supported housing excepted) and how many times have rent officers said to tenants in the past that it is THEIR responsibility to claim HB and not the landlords responsibility?  Try 100% of rent officers, housing officers, arrears officers or income officers as HO’s have now become!

In November and December2013 I delivered a series of bedroom tax appeal workshops and on each day at least one frontline ‘welfare officer’ from social landlords came up to me and said I didn’t realise a tenant could appeal the bedroom tax!  Hardly surprising that landlords were against appealing if their frontline staff did not even know the tenant COULD appeal!  The fact that every HB decision notice which landlords will invariably get HAVE to outline the rights of appeal on that notice and housing staff must have looked at thousands of these….

Let’s draw a line in the sand and adopt a lesson learned approach? (How many times does that phrase get trotted out to belittle a cock up?  IDS take note!!)

Which brings me on to the latest hot issue – the pre 1996 exemptions.  Social landlords are falling over themselves trawling through arrears systems to find as many exempt tenants as possible – and some poor sods are having to trawl through archived paper files or the old tambours collecting dust in basements trying to find these tenants – as it is very much in social landlords interests to find as many exempt tenants as possible.

Isn’t it strange when this is the same issue as a tenant appeal – the landlord wins out financially if they do – yet appealing a bedroom tax decision is somehow wrong and the landlord thinks they will lose out!!

Lack of thought anyone?

Here is where a lessons learned approach really kicks in.  In March 2014 some 5 weeks or so from today all tenants, and at the last official figure 523,000 or so, will receive their 2014/15 bedroom tax decisions.  With all the successful first tier tribunal appeals and an upper tier one of huge significance just announce on room usage last week, landlords should be bending over backwards advising tenants to appeal, appeal and appeal.

I say again it is in social landlords best interest to get as many tenants appealing the bedroom tax as possible as the landlord benefits financially from this.

Do I expect my phone to be ringing off the hook and my PC screen to be full of ‘red inked’ email requests for training and workshops? Surely that would assume social landlords think….

Will the courts force coalition to abandon the bedroom tax policy? Yes!

The legal definition of ‘bedroom’ is so much more than each local council having to inspect each property at a huge cost to local government.  It allows the new bedroom tax decisions taken by local government in March this year to be challenged by way of JR in a very simple and cost-efficient way and such a JR challenge will mortally wound the bedroom tax policy and get rid of it once and for all.  Here I explain why.

From the beginning I have railed against the bedroom tax and with good reason.  How can any council decide you have one or more bedrooms too many if there is no definition of what constitutes a bedroom has been THE central issue.  If you cant say what a bedroom is then how can anyone say you have too many?  It makes no sense at all.  Yet councils made these decisions on 523,000 Housing Benefit claims on the flimsiest of evidence and with scant consideration and even the so-called evidence basis was that of a vested interest in the landlord.

It was and is a mess.

YET now we do have a legal definition of ‘bedroom’ and boy oh boy does the proverbial now hit the fan!

A judge in an Upper Tribunal case has determined that ‘bedroom’ has its ordinary everyday meaning which is a room furnished with a bed and/or used for sleeping in.  Hardly a revelation but it has huge consequence for the bedroom tax policy.

Firstly, the fact this is an Upper Tribunal decision means it is a legal definition which binds and councils in making decisions have to give this regard in their decisions as do first tier or lower tribunals on 2013/14 appeals.  Note that existing cases have 13 months in which to appeal the bedroom tax decisions made in March 2013 and so all 523,000 decisions can still (and should!) be appealed.

Secondly, councils are now in the process of determining 523,000 or so new bedroom tax decisions for 2014/15 and here is where the legal definition really comes into play.  These decisions have to factor in the definition of a room furnished with beds and/or used for sleeping – but how the hell do councils know this is the case?

How does a council KNOW the social tenant’s allegedly ‘spare’ bedroom is used as or furnished as a bedroom?

They don’t and they can’t know this. Yet they are the decision makers and they are duty bound to make each bedroom tax HB decision correctly and in accordance with law and regulations.  This for me as a first consequence can ONLY mean when a tenant disputes a room is a bedroom then councils will have to inspect each property to determine whether a room is furnished as or used as a bedroom.

The cost of doing that will be astronomical and could result in the situation that it costs the public purse more to decide whether a room is a bedroom that any ‘saving’ this produces for the public purse.  And even that becomes a problem as correctly it will cost the LOCAL public purse, that is the local council, more than the CENTRAL government public purse saves.

The truly bizarre upshot of this is that local councils will spend a fortune of local money for a decision to take millions out of the local economy so that IDS and the DWP at central government can have a saving.  This creates a huge tension between local and central government and one that cannot be resolved unless (a) central government gives local government the money to do these inspections which is unlikely; or (b) local government refuse to make new bedroom tax decisions which is even more unlikely.

All of this is predicated on the tenant disputing they have spare ‘bedrooms’ and note here that the bedroom tax can ONLY be applied to a ‘bedroom’ however defined which is why the name ‘spare room subsidy’ has always been a misnomer and a much bigger political construct than the term ‘bedroom tax.’

Tenants should be and undoubtedly will be appealing that the spare room is a study as it is used and furnished as a study/ computer / homework room or any other genuine and logical  use other than a bedroom.

Is it unreasonable that a couple with teenage boys argue that mum and dad sleep in one bedroom, the girls sleep in the other bedroom but the boxroom is used as a computer room for the girls to do their homework in?  Of course not that is a typical usage of the ubiquitous 3 bed/5 property. Hence the bedroom tax is not 14% but zero.

What about the couple who have brought up their children who have now flown the coop in a property that has two double bedrooms and a boxroom?  Is it unreasonable to see that property being used as having one genuine spare bedroom and the boxroom used as a study / storage / computer room? Yes it is as that reflects reality of everyday life and the 25% bedroom tax reduces to 14%

Tenants should dispute the number of bedrooms on their normal usage as that is the reality.  It then takes away the contentious though very valid arguments on room size which tends to be about these ‘boxrooms’ in the majority of cases anyway. As I stated here before the legal definition of a bedroom became known room usage is likely to play a much bigger part than room size arguments in challenging the bedroom tax decisions this year.

IF, and it is a big “if” the reticent British public do forget that it is “not British” to challenge and in fact do challenge the local councils decision to impose the bedroom tax then the proverbial hits the fan.  With this Upper Tribunal ruling on a bedroom needing to be used and furnished as a bedroom then local councils can no longer get away with the landlord says it is a 3 bed so its a 3 bed and the local council has to come out and inspect as part of the decision to impose the bedroom tax.  If they don’t they are taking a high risk strategy should the usually reticent British tenant stick to their guns and insist on the bedroom tax decision going to appeal. Though rather than my local council in Liverpool having to attend 11000 or so appeals it is surely the case that the decision to impose the bedroom tax will be taken along the judicial review route.

How can a council impose a deduction of housing benefit (the bedroom tax) or even make a decision at all based on guesswork for that it what this is if the council does not go out and inspect?

It seems highly probable that a series of JRs will be taken against all councils bedroom tax decision making and not before time as I have always maintained this was a sham and now this legal definition makes this a racing certainty.  It has always been a nonsense and legal fiction that a council can legally rely upon the word of a vested interest landlord.  Similarly it has always been a nonsense and legal fiction that the tenancy agreement says three bedrooms therefore the property has 3 bedrooms and again that the ubiquitous decision of all councils to choose to believe the landlords is a sham blanket policy in which they have fettered their discretion out of cost factors and expediency.

Councils will be resolute in that they will NOT be coming out to inspect due to cost factors and doubtless arguments such as tenants will simply take out beds from rooms and put in a desk to say they are a study and not a bedroom.  Yet while there is much validity in that it is still assumptive and not fact and the bedroom tax like all HB decisions and like all welfare benefit decisions and like all public authority decisions need to be determined on fact and not on assumption.

Social landlords will be at first apoplectic over this legal definition as more and more tenants will appeal and refuse to pay the bedroom tax element that has been imposed in this assumptive and legally fictitious way.  Costs of chasing alleged underpayments of rent will rocket as will costs of court actions and – yet again – the bedroom tax will directly create an even bigger tension between tenant and landlord than it already has.

Doubtless social landlords will once again take the stupid route and look to reclassify properties while lobbying government that one spare ‘bedroom’ should be allowed for all tenants which was always a naive and futile strategy and especially with this stubborn coalition despite some underlying merit in the argument vis-a-vis statutory overcrowding being two bedrooms fewer than need to qualify for it. Doubtless too that landlords ill keep sending out staff to see whether boxrooms can ‘fit a bed in’ and other futile strategies so it looks like they are doing something for the tenant.  That has always been a nonsense and when will they realise the bedroom tax decision is nothing to do with them it is between the tenant and the local council and social landlords sticking their noses in hinders the challenge to the bedroom tax rather than helps it!

Landlords should be thinking of funding JRs as a matter of urgency and correct strategy as this will put the fear of God into the coalition and challenge the pernicious bedroom tax policy far more than bleating about the impacts of it and non viable and timid craven strategies such as lobbying for every tenant to be permitted one spare room.  Yet that would involve landlords thinking straight and logically which invariably ends not to happen with the ultra conservative ‘sector’ who see painting a door anything other than green as radical!

The legal definition now presents a huge opportunity for the entire bedroom tax policy to be scrutinised through a judicial review as to the central question of what is a bedroom.  When for example Liverpool City Council issues their 2014/15 bedroom tax decisions based on their assumption of how many ‘bedrooms’ a tenant has which they will do without going out to inspect a property, the assumptiveness of that decision with its absence of fact and any evidential substantiation etc., etc., should become the subject of a JR by tenant(s) which landlords should fund.  The cost between all landlords in the city equates to peanuts for each and it enables the High Court to rule on this farce of an administrative decision – in essence the entire bedroom tax policy with its sham of a decision-making process is the issue of the JR which the legal definition from the Upper Tribunal now makes even more of a sham than I have have always maintained it was and is.

The UT decision with its legal definition of ‘bedroom’ now enables such a judicial review of the entire policy and that is a huge challenge which social landlords will be seen to be making by funding.  With 1200 social landlords in the UK just imagine if they all put in a measly £1000 each.  That makes a £1.2m war chest to challenge the bedroom tax in its entirety!  Or put another way ask any landlord if for the cost of £1000 they could get rid of the bedroom tax policy and such a question becomes a rhetorical one!

Conversely or alternatively ask all unions to fund such a JR for the political damage this would wreak on the coalition or a whole multitude of others who have a ‘political’ axe to grind against this pernicious policy and the upshot is the same.

The opportunity the legal definition of ‘bedroom’ presents and one that social landlords would be stupid to ignore and landlords have to so this to demonstrate to tenants that landlords are on their side.  The PR coup this will give landlords in tenant eyes is very much needed for all landlords.

In summary and as I stated at the start the legal definition of ‘bedroom’ is so much more than each local council having to inspect each property at a huge cost to local government.  It allows the new bedroom tax decisions taken by local government in March this year to be challenged by way of JR in a very simple and cost-efficient way and such a JR challenge will mortally wound the bedroom tax policy and get rid of it once and for all.

Can a council recover a bedroom tax DHP? No no no!

Local councils are not content with totally ballsing up the original bedroom tax decision they now seek to recover the DHP they awarded to the pre 1996 exempt cases that would not have had to make if they hadn’t ballsed up in the first place.

According to the DHP guidance and the law they are not able to recover a DHP in these circumstances either and so this is yet another example of maladministration by these buffoons.

The latest one hot on the heels of St Helens (see here) is Wirral Council and their letter is below and under this I have composed a quick draft response that anyone who is pre-1996 exempt may care to consider to send to their council should they embark on this errant path.

The letter

wirral dhp recovery

 

Date

Address etc

Your refs:

Dear Malcolm Flanagan,

You will not be making arrangements to recover the DHP referenced in your letter dated 22 Janaury 2014 as I am asking you review this errant fait accompli decision .

I contend that this DHP for any period before the above date is not recoverable and this is supported by paragraph 5.10 of the DHP guidance manual issued by DWP in April 2013 and the wording there stems from law in the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations which were made under S69 of the Child Support Pensions and Social Security Act and at regulation 8(2).

The DHP awarded at the time was a correct decision and under the above references is not recoverable.  I did not misrepresent the position when applying for a DHP or did I fail to disclose any material fact.  The DHP claim was awarded correctly at that time.

I also note and consider your letter deficient in law as you have not advised that I have a right of review to the above decision which is stated in the above referenced DHP guidance manual at paragraph 3.15 and also at 6.3.

I also maintain that your fait accompli letter above is maladministration (see 6.1) and that the review I have as my right needs to be completed by another person (see 6.5).  I also note that this apparent decision contains a right to Judicial Review and see para 6.1 of the referenced DHP guidance above.

I await you comments by return and specifically to any authority and reasoning you maintain you have that this DHP is recoverable

 

Yours etc

 

 

 

 

There IS a legal definition of bedroom for bedroom tax purposes

I have read that the Upper Tribunal in case referenced CH/140/2013 the term “bedroom” has been defined with a plain dictionary meaning, the link is here

Just how significant this is I discuss below but first lets look at what the Upper Tribunal said:

“19. The word “bedroom” is not defined in the legislation. It is an ordinary English word and should be construed as such.  According to the dictionary definition in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary a bedroom is “a room containing a bed”, whilst in the Collins Dictionary it is “a room furnished with beds or used for sleeping”. In the Merriam Webster Dictionary it is “a room used for sleeping””

Read those definitions again carefully: A bedroom is

  • “…a room containing a bed”
  • “…a room furnished with beds or used for sleeping”
  • “…a room used for sleeping”

They first state a bedroom has to be furnished with a bed yet then say it’s a room used for sleeping and the two operative phrases I have highlighted.

So if a room is not furnished with a bed AND is not used for sleeping in, then according to the Upper Tribunal the room is NOT A BEDROOM.

The significance is this is the first definition of the term “bedroom” and because it is so defined by the Upper Tribunal it sets a legal precedent which councils and first tier tribunals have to follow.

A few weeks ago I published a post which argued that room usage would be a far stronger and more widely used argument in bedroom tax appeals than room size.  I supported that view by reference to what Lord Bingham said in Uratemp Ventures –v- Collins (2001) which was a case in the House of Lords and then the highest court in the land.  This post attracted legal commentators who did not like my argument.

Then two days ago we had the Rochdale successful bedroom tax appeal case in which a room was ruled not to be a bedroom on the room usage argument and it cited the Uratemp case that I have done earlier.

Now we have a legally binding Upper Tribunal decision with a definition of ‘bedroom’ in it which says a room is not a bedroom if it is not furnished and not used for that purpose.

Or in simple terms a study is a study and is not a bedroom if it has a desk in it and used as a study

At this point it is worth remembering what the bedroom tax regulations say and note well that it is only a ‘bedroom’ (however defined) to which the bedroom tax can be imposed.  If a property has two living rooms you cannot simply say one COULD BE a bedroom if it has never be used as or furnished as a bedroom.  The bedroom tax regulations state and this is the SI 3040 definition: –

“(3) The appropriate percentage is—

 (a) 14% where the number of bedrooms in the dwelling exceeds by one the number of bedrooms to which the claimant is entitled; and

(b) 25% where the number of bedrooms in the dwelling exceeds by two or more the number of bedrooms to which the claimant is entitled.

What this means is a ‘bedroom’ has to be defined FIRST and before any deduction (the bedroom tax) can be made for having more than the housing need for bedrooms.

Yet as we all know and know well local councils did NOT define a bedroom as they maintained they did not have to define what a bedroom is; rather they simply took the landlords word on how many bedrooms a property has.  Again the sham of the bedroom tax decision making process is revealed.

Does the landlord know that every bedroom they claim a tenant has is furnished and used as a bedroom?  Of course not!  Yet that is the underlying assumption and huge assumption the local councils relied upon in order to impose the bedroom tax.

Again the decision making process is exposed as a sham.

There is another very interesting aspect to this Upper Tribunal definition of a bedroom which will really set the cat amongst the pigeons.

Councils to date have argued that there is nothing in HB regulations to say they have to come out and look to see whether a room is a bedroom or not.  This expedient cost factor has been criticised by many First tier Tribunal judges with comments such as this by Simon Collins QC ahead of the now infamous Fife judgments:

“In this case, the council has made a decision based on the landlord’s description but hasn’t even gone round to inspect the room.”

I now contend that as a working and legal definition of “bedroom” in relation to Housing Benefit has been set down by the Upper Tribunal that councils will have to come out and visit each property that disputes a room is a bedroom!!! 

Sorry reader did I say cat and pigeons rather than proverbial and fan!!

Now just imagine the public purse cost if every tenant appeals the bedroom tax on the basis that the alleged ‘bedroom’ is in fact a storage room or a study or a dining room or a computer room or any other usage purpose!  How much will this cost local councils and the public purse?  The only reliable estimate for that is a shedload!…unless you wish to describe it as an “absolute shedload!”

The bedroom tax will cost local councils more to operate lawfully than central government could ever claim to save from it.

So dear reader, as I have maintained all along, the best way to get rid of the bedroom tax is to appeal the decision.

The tenant has 13 months from the original decision in which to appeal the bedroom tax and as most will be dated March 2013 that means until the end of April 2014.  So get appealing it is not too late.

Also in about 6 weeks time the new bedroom tax decisions for 2014/15 will be landing on tenant doormats.  So ALL tenants and yes I mean every single one of you should be appealing that decision too.

Let’s not beat around the bush and let us all act as a mass direct action by appealing the hated and pernicious bedroom tax.  Again as I have always maintained the original 2013/14 decisions were made with a sham of a decision making process and every tenant has an absolute right to appeal them because of the lack of legitimacy that sham decision making process gives.  Those decisions in 2013/14 and those to come in 2014/15 are not legally reliable and should be appealed out of merit let alone as part of direct action.

Direct action is somehow ‘not British’ or not the right thing to do in the minds of too many, but that view needs to be changed and because ALL decisions are flawed and ALL decisions have been made without any semblance of consideration.

All councils have to come to a considered decision, have to give the bedroom tax decision consideration and so think on what the word ‘consider’ means in its ordinary everyday language.

Councils did not consider the facts of each case they just carried on a hugely assumptive and flawed decision making process by believing the word of the vested interest landlord.  They did not consider whether your purported bedroom had a bed in it or was used to sleep in, yet they needed to and yet they did not.

The arguments they used such as “you signed for a 3 bed 30 thirty years ago therefore it’s a 3 bed” are hogwash and not a consideration or a considered decision.  That excuse and all the other they used to get out of doing a proper consideration can no longer hold.  If you maintain a room is a study or dining room and has never been used as or furnished as a bedroom then it’s not a bedroom.

Councils in doing the dirty work of the DWP in this risible and pernicious and ill-considered policy have decided that just because it could be a bedroom then it is a bedroom.  Yet that naive and errant view can no longer hold from this UT decision which does define a bedroom.  If you can fit a bed in it then it is a bedroom is a load of codswallop and a legal fiction.

All those social landlords who went out and checked to see if a bed and a wardrobe and chest of drawers could fit into a room they wished to call a bedroom have wasted millions in doing this fruitless exercise which was always a legal fiction too.  They may have and indeed did believe their opinion mattered but it does not even with the ordinary language definition of ‘bedroom.’

It has to be furnished or used as a bedroom to be a bedroom – that is what the Upper Tribunal have said here.

If it’s not then it’s a mere room and NOT subject to the bedroom tax!

And that is what this Upper Tribunal case says

Not just a nail in the bedroom tax coffin the fire has been lit to cremate the bedroom tax coffin with the pre-1996 issue and this Upper Tribunal ruling which defines a bedroom has just poured a gallon of paraffin on the top

We now have a legal definition of ‘bedroom’ for bedroom tax purposes start striking the matches!

Pre-1996 bedroom tax issues – the NUTI boys and madness

Never underestimate the incompetence of local government!

“Never Underestimate The Incompetence or NUTI is usually followed by the word “of local government” and the bedroom tax has demonstrated that time and time again.

The pre-1996 exemption reveals that every decision maker in every local council got this wrong.  Whether you think that’s harsh or not its undoubtedly factual and its undoubted and universal maladministration by ALL local councils which the DWP’s maladministration in steering them down this blind alley is no excuse.

It is a cock up of monumental proportion, in fact universal proportion and it is maladministration of universal proportion too and it is monumentally offensive to those who have suffered the impact and consequences of having the bedroom tax imposed in error.

Terms such as ‘technical error’ and ‘loophole’ abound over the pre-1996 issue but they just don’t cut it and are used as political spin or sophistry to try and soften the real issues that this is universal maladministration and a monumental cock up…. Never Underestimate The Incompetence of central and local government in what HAS happened and also the NUTI boys are in evidence again in what they are doing now!

Local councils are seeking to reclaim the discretionary housing payments (DHP) they gave to tenants who they now admit they wrongly applied the bedroom tax deductions to! 

Yet local councils have no authority to do this and are acting unlawfully again in seeking the DHP money back!

Madness. Madness, they call it madness – Yes the NUTI boys are in evidence again and this is more than an embarrassment as tenants in St Helens are finding out.

Received a letter just the other day, Dont seem they wanna know you no more, They’ve laid it down giving you the score….Yet Ian Roberts, Assistant Chief Executive (Finance) at St Helens Council as the song continues “”How can you show your face, When you’re a disgrace to the human race?”

Your councils cock up has meant that hundreds – and by the figures I have well over 400 from just one landlord alone -of vulnerable people in St Helens in Merseyside have suffered because of your cock up and now you are demanding the DHP you awarded them back, a DHP they would not have needed if you had done your job properly in the first bloody place!
To cap it all you have no bloody right to it back either!!

The simple explanation is the DHP guidance document issued by the DWP in April 2013 says at 5.10 that you can only reclaim a DHP if any of three circumstances exist.

  • Firstly that the tenant misrepresented facts when they applied for a DHP and that does not apply.
  • Secondly, if the tenant failed to disclose a material fact and that does not apply either
  • Thirdly and finally if there was an error when the (DHP) claim was determined and that doesn’t apply either.  The error was in the HB claim not the DHP claim and that error was made by your council.
If however you want the regulatory and legalese why your council, which I remind you made the cock up here, cannot claim back the DHP then go and look at the DFA – the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations which were made under S69 of the Child Support Pensions and Social Security Act and at regulation 8(2).
I won’t bore the reader with what they say but they mirror 5.10 of the DHP guidance I explain above which even numpties like Assistant Chief Executives (Finances) can decipher.
What is all the more galling in this is that the council has written to the tenant TELLING them the council has decided to take back the DHP and unless the tenant asks the council to look again at this the council will ask the landlord for the DHP money back.
The NUTI boys are autocratic despots who are ‘winging it’ and intimidating tenants with these letters and adding more offence and incompetence to their original offensive cock up.  (Psst – wait for the “we are guardians of the public purse” comments you will get back from these incompetent buffoons when you expose their many failings including this latest unlawful action!)
What this also does – apart from this council maladministration being presented a fait accompli to the tenant – is draw the landlord into this farce and unless the landlords know the DHP cannot be reclaimed by the council AND unless the landlords advise tenants of that fact then the landlord is once again vilified by the tenant and once again because of maladministration by the NUTI boys at local councils.
So there’s a message there to every single social landlord who has pre-1996 exempt tenants and who have received a DHP.  Check the references above to the DHP guidance and to the Discretionary Financial Assistance regulations (DFA) and you will find all the above is correct.
Do you social landlord:
  • want your tenants to perceive you as being in cahoots with the local councils in this FURTHER maladministration farce?
  • want to tenants to think even less of you and your efforts in challenging the bedroom tax than they do already?
  • realise what that will mean when direct payment of HB goes to tenants and not to you and how low paying rent will be in tenant priorities?
  • even realise that the bedroom tax directly creates an unhealthy tension between tenant and landlord that until now you have done little but foster and enhance?
  • not realise that the pre-1996 issue when you are identifying as many pre-1996 cases as possible if a gift on a silver platter for you to restore the landlord tenant relationship?
  • not realise if all you do is identify pre-1996 cases and do bugger all to stop LAs trying it on by wanting DHPs back and you dont help tenants fight this that you are even deeper in the brown smelly stuff than you are now?
  • Do you social landlord ever think?
  • Do you social landlord want to be an embarrassment too?

The pre-1996 issue has many facets and councils trying to take back DHPs from tenants who they wrongly imposed the bedroom tax creates much more tensions that need not happen.

Tenants have contacted me to say after having the bedroom tax that was wrongly deducted repaid to their landlord their rent accounts are in credit due to the DHP payments.  Those tenants want that money back YET social landlords are holding on to it in fear of the local councils claiming back an overpayment from them.

Yet as the above explains no such overpayment exists as a DHP is NOT subject to HB regulations and a DHP can ONLY be recovered in the circumstances I outline above and none of these three circumstances exist in this situation.

The St Helens letter is below and the above commentary needs to be read in conjunction with it and I will just make one final point.  The letter begins “Following a change in your circumstances..”  – There has NOT been a ‘change in circumstances’ at all as this is a defined term in HB regulations and even if HBR were to apply to a DHP which they do not, this would NOT be a change in circumstances in HBR terms.  The council is simply trying it on and is incompetent.

Tenants in this situation should also quote the above to their councils if they get such an erroneous letter and also ask their local council about what interest payments they are prepared to make to the tenant on the bedroom tax unlawfully withheld and any other compensation payment they are going to make for their incompetence in the original decision and how much extra they are willing to pay for this added maladministration in seeking to recover the DHP which are not recoverable.

Do my eyes deceive me reader?  Just looked into the sky and there appears to be those solicitors in cheap shoes type (always a giveaway!) dressed in some form of bird costumes (looks like hawks) holding clipboards and seeking directions to social housing estates! Whatever are they doing?

The offensive St Helens letter:

sthelensdhp

The bedroom tax and DHP axe, Freud the fraud, the ignoble lord!

House of Lords Debate January 20th 2014

Subtitle:           Freud is a liar with the math skills of Osborne and data veracity of IDS

Subtitle:           DHP payments reduced next year by £15m

Subtitle:           Freud announces a sneaky £10m DHP cut THIS financial year

This weeks House of Lords debate with comments in red

Housing: Underoccupancy Charge

Question

Asked by Baroness Hollis of Heigham

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to revise their underoccupancy charge so that, as in the private rented sector from 2008, it applies only to new tenants.

NOTE: LHA for private tenants only applied to new private tenants, the bedroom tax applied to all existing social tenants is the context

2.53 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con): My Lords, as restrictions on entitlement to housing benefit based on accommodation size have been in place in the private rented sector since 1989, the local housing allowance introduced in April 2008 could be phased in. We have no plans to make similar arrangements for the removal of the spare room subsidy, which has already been applied, as it delivers a consistent approach to the treatment of housing benefit claimants across both the private and social rented sectors.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab): My Lords, the sectors are very different. The private rented sector seeks to make profit out of people’s housing benefit. That does not apply to social housing. Social tenants hit by the bedroom tax, through no fault of their own, are now trapped. They are unable to move to smaller social housing as it does not exist. They are unable to move to private housing because private landlords are rejecting or evicting them. They are unable to get discretionary housing payments because most are refused. Debts are mounting and lives are being destroyed. Will the Government please at least apply the bedroom tax only to new tenants who can cope with the new rules, as in 2008, perhaps over a transitional period until we have enough new housing to meet housing need?

Lord Freud: My Lords, the number of transfers into one-bedroom social rented accommodation in the past year is running at 108,000. (Is this higher or lower reader Freud doesnt say does he?) There are more people in the private rented sector, not fewer, (NB Freud does not say here that private tenants get on average over 30% more in HB than social tenants does he reader?) and DHPs are—if anything—underspent. Our indications are that they will be underspent. I am pleased to say that in Norwich, with which I know the noble Baroness is very closely associated, the spend was a little higher: £166,000 in the six months, against the allocation of £288,000. I am puzzled that Norwich has not put in a bid for additional (see below) funding. I urge it to do so because it has until 3 February to do it.

Lord Dholakia (LD): My Lords, will my noble friend indicate what discussions are taking place with local authorities to ensure that they and the public are aware of the discretionary housing payments?

Lord Freud: My Lords, we have a range of meetings and interactions with local authorities. In particular, at the moment we now have a £20 million discretionary fund on which they can bid. I am hoping to get as much of that money to them as possible. (As much as possible?  So it is not all going in DHPs then!! See below for sneaky £10m cut before March 2014)

Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con): My Lords, the House is becoming very well aware that the party opposite does not approve of the removal of the spare bedroom subsidy. Could the Minister confirm that if the policy were reversed, it might cost as much as £1 billion over the next two years? Would the Opposition not be a little more convincing if they could give us some idea of how they would replace that?

Lord Freud: My Lords, this is a substantial saving, as my noble friend says. Our central estimate is that we will save £500 million a year on this programme, which makes it an important contributor to the Government’s deficit plan. If the Opposition maintain their policy, they need to look at how to find that money back. Not only that, they will run the risk of having to have a similar policy in the private rented sector.

OH DEAR..£1BN OVER TWO YEARS? Lets look at that shall we and how definitive of the ignoble conniving Lord to say “WILL!”

  • Currently there are 523,000 hit by the bedroom tax according to official DWP figures.  Yes the same DWP in which Freud works!
  • The average bedroom tax is £14pw or £728 pa.
  • 523,000 multiplied by £728 is the MAXIMUM yearly saving and this is £381m.
  • £381m per year is AT MOST £762m in two years.

Then of course take out the 40,000 to 60,000 pre-1996 cases at £728 per year and this is a £29m reduction per year. Then take out the DHP money (and I so could go on but you get the point!)

Yes the point that Lord Freud is knowingly and deliberately misleading Parliament or in lay terms lying through his teeth

Lord Best (CB): My Lords, has the Minister had a chance to read the report from the Defra Select Committee, chaired by Anne McIntosh MP in the other place? It recommends that rural communities should be exempt from the bedroom tax because it is so difficult for people in rural areas to move down to smaller premises. Staying put means they can be paying £25 a week that they were not paying before, creating a great deal of hardship. Has the Minister had a chance to read that report and react to it?

Lord Freud: My Lords, I have looked very closely at the issue of rural communities. That was why, this year, we put in an extra £5 million a year to handle the subsidy arrangements, which buys out a substantial proportion of the cost of this policy.

The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds: My Lords, what flexibility is there for housing authorities in the implementation of the underoccupancy charge in circumstances such as when a child dies and the house thereby becomes underoccupied?

Lord Freud: The basic principle here is that when a child dies or there is a death, there is a 12-month run-on so that tenants remain entitled to that room for that full year. However, the underpinning support for making sure that these cases of hardship are managed is clearly the discretionary housing fund, which is running at £180 million this year and will be at £165 million next year.

How many lies here reader? 

The original amount of bedroom tax DHP was £25m of the £150m overall budget.  Yet Freud is saying here this applies solely to the bedroom tax and in doing so he is knowingly and deliberately lying again.

The total amount of bedroom tax DHP money is at most £45m and possibly £35m this year see below for the conniving and sneaky £10m reduction in this years DHPs.  Yet Freud is trying to say it is £180m isn’t he!!  

He is also sneaking in an announcement that this year it is £180m yet all other coalition figures have been saying it is £190m this year.  So when I asked above reader is ALL of this money going to be spent we now see Freud admitting that £10m of this is NOT going to be spent.

Then we see Freud using this £10m reduction this financial year to make the FURTHER £15m per year cut to DHPs – a total of £25m in all – look smaller than it actually is.  What a sneaky little shit! 

I don’t excuse the language reader, the cap fits!

The UNLAWFUL bedroom tax imposed by IDS sees him steal £22m from the disabled!

Fully updated 5 February 2014

IDS is going to change the bedroom tax legislation without debate or discussion on 3 March to make stealing £22m from the disabled lawful. We all need to stop him.

This post is a major update of the numbers of exempt bedroom tax households who have had the bedroom tax UNLAWFULLY IMPOSED upon them by the incompetence of IDS and the DWP.

For example today Birmingham announced that they have over 2000 households who have been UNLAWFULLY IMPOSED with the bedroom tax against the DWP estimate of just 95 households.  That is 21 times more than the estimate IDS gave for his alleged ‘small’ number!  It also means IDS has STOLEN about £1.5m from Birmingham tenants and 87% of them will be disabled and two thirds – a million pounds alone – has been stolen from women in Birmingham so far this year by IDS.

That amount is rising by the day and that amount IDS calls ‘small!’

Even the London borough of Westminster announced they had 124 households who had been UNLAWFULLY IMPOSED (and no apologies for thee capitalisation or shouting – it deserves to be said for what it is and SHOUTED from the highest rooftops)

The DWP estimate for Westminster was 7…yes that’s seven but at the latest count it is 124 or almost 18 times the estimate of IDS.

The DWP estimate equates to just 0.76% of all bedroom tax cases yet Westminster is 12.7% (and see other figures below.)

So even London which has 22% of working age tenants affected by the bedroom tax compared with twice that number in the North West at 43% still has almost 13% of bedroom tax cases that were UNLAWFULLY IMPOSED by IDS’s cock up.  Make no mistake this is not a small loophole reader, it is a major major cock up and says so much about how thought through and considered the bedroom tax policy was!

Are there 60.000 families who have had the bedroom tax wrongly imposed?

Just How big is the ‘small’ issue IDS says it is?

Ready for some numbers on the pre 1996 exempt bedroom tax issue that will (a) expose that the policy is ill considered; that (b) blows the DWP’s estimate of a ‘small’ number of 3000 – 5000 only being affected by this, and (c) exposes that the coalition has no credibility over the bedroom tax and the wider welfare reforms it is imposing?

Yes thought you might so let’s have a look!

The DWP and Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Freud have all said the number of those households who were wrongly imposed with the bedroom tax as a result of the DWP’s error is between 3000 – 5000 nationally.  Let’s say 4000 which is the midpoint.

I estimated the number to be 40,000 or ten times the DWP amount of their midpoint of 4000.  This caused some commotion and was the lead story on the front page of the Guardian.  It has also been covered on Sky News and elsewhere such as the housing media when my 40,000 estimate has always been seen as the highest estimate.  It will shortly form part of a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 in early February as well

So was I so far off the real figure or was my 40,000 an underestimate or if you will, and no pun intended,  a conservative estimate?

It is very much looking like the latter as the table below of early figures suggests.

DWP fig

40,000 fig

Early figs

If national average
  Exeter

5

47

31

26,000
  Milton Keynes

12

122

78

25,400
  St Helens

24

243

456

74,500
  Sefton

24

240

500+

83,000
  Waltham Forest

11

112

146+

51,600
  West Lancashire

8

83

150+

72,300
  Wirral

29

289

528

72,800
  TOTALS

117

1136

1889
  AVERAGES

16

162

270

57,900

Column 1 is the local council name: Column 2 is what the council should have with the 4000 DWP est.

Column 3 is the number the 40,000 estimate should give: Column 4 is the early number identified

Column 5 is the extrapolated figure

What the early figures shows is that it may well be much higher than my 40,000 estimate and circa 60,000 households wrongly imposed with the bedroom tax.

Some notes as to why the figures above are a conservative estimate.

  • The figures are in many cases from just one landlord in each area and usually the former council housing department which has stock transferred.  So in for example Sefton above the figures will be higher when other housing associations in Sefton are added to the 500+ figure given to colleagues at Reclaim today by One Vision Housing
  • The figures will NOT include those that have succeeded to the tenancy since 1996 who if the continuous HB claim criterion is met will also be exempt.
  • The figures have been given to me from councils and from housing associations

Yet the real issue is just how incompetent is the DWP estimate of 4000 compared to the final figure which I suggest may well be 60,000 if not more

Just the figures above from seven council areas alone has taken up almost 50% of the entire DWP estimate for the whole of the country and there are over 300 more to add to this!

Even if the lowest ‘early’ figure of Exeter equates to the final figure it will still be 26,000 families across the country that have wrongly had the bedroom tax imposed.

Just how little is the knowledge of and the forethought put into the bedroom tax by the coalition?

What does this say about the bedroom tax and the other welfare reforms of this coalition?

If it is 60,000 households each with 2.4 persons in each household then that is 144,000 men women and children who have been wrongly imposed with the bedroom tax and that is one hell of a lot of offensive consequences for those people.

It’s a number that is the size of the population in Blackpool or Windsor or Oxford or Middlesbrough or Ipswich or Guildford.  A number that only Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen has a greater population than in Scotland: A number that only Cardiff and Swansea better in Wales, and only Belfast beats in Northern Ireland.

It’s a number that Iain Duncan Smith says is small!!

It is conceivable when Liverpool and Knowsley figures are added to the other three areas of Sefton, St Helens and Wirral above that make up Merseyside that number alone may be more than 4000 households wrongly having the bedroom tax imposed and more than the DWP estimate for the whole country.  And note that Merseyside has less than 5% of all bedroom tax cases nationally.

  • Anyone still think this is going to be a small number?
  • Anyone still think my 40,000 original estimate was hot air and attention seeking?
  • Anyone still think the bedroom tax policy was well conceived?
  • Anyone still think the bedroom tax was well thought through?
  • Anyone still got any confidence in this coalition over the bedroom tax?
  • Anyone still got any confidence in the coalition’s wider welfare reforms?

Anyone still believe that the pre 1996 number focus is anything more than a clever political strategy by the DWP to move the focus away from the huge cock up they made and away from the bloody offensive impact it has had on tens of thousands of men women and children?

So now that the DWP risible estimate has been exposed for what it is I do wish the media would focus on what this has meant for those exempt.

  • Just how many have skipped at least one meal a day to pay for a tax they didn’t have to pay?
  • Just how many have not been able to afford to put the heating on because of this?
  • How many in addition to these numbers have already moved and left the family home because of this inept policy and the DWP cock up?  Yes these people are in addition to the numbers above too aren’t they reader?
  • How many families and wider families have lost the ‘family home’ due to this error and felt compelled and indeed advised to leave the family home they have decades of memories in?
  • How many have been evicted for bedroom tax arrears when the bedroom tax wasn’t due at all?  Whether the law sees that as “eviction by oppression” or not it most definitely means that in any other terms!

I ask again, is there anyone that still…..oh hang on…what’s that noise in the sky?  Is it hawkish solicitors circling ready to bombard all and sundry with compensation claims? Ahem!

If wrongly imposed bedroom tax tenants who are exempt because of the pre 1996 issue began a Parliamentary Ombudsman complaint against the DWP for maladministration.  And especially if they live in Chingford or Wirral West.

The procedure is tenant writes directly to DWP with the maladministration complaint (and copies this in to their local MP.)  If no response from DWP or an unsatisfactory one they then ask their MP to take up a Parliamentary Ombudsman complaint on their behalf which of course their MP can hardly refuse to do.

In Chingford that would see IDS launching a Parliamentary Ombudsman complaint against his own bedroom tax policy!! 

And Esther McVey having to do the same for Wirral West constituents which of course the above early figures in the table shows there are many of these tenants in her constituency who have had the bedroom tax wrongly imposed upon them!!

But imagine these Wirral tenants are in neighbouring Frank Field’s Wirral ward of Birkenhead.  Can you see Frank Field – he of tenants should brick up doorways or knock down walls due to the bedroom tax – standing up in the House of Commons to announce he has today launched 200 separate cases of maladministration against the DWPs bedroom tax policy?  Or any other opposition MP across the country doing the same?

Would it even matter if the maladministration claim was not upheld?  I doubt it would (though suggest such claims may well be upheld) as just the spectacle and political embarrassment this would cause and just how much doubt this would cast on the coalition’s credibility is more than enough.  Maybe more than enough to prevent the coalition changing the legislation as this would be seen as a cover up for their cock up in the first place…and of course keep this cock up (which they risibly call a loophole!!) firmly in front of the full glare of the media.

Anyone still think this is “small?”  No didn’t think so!!

UPDATE 5 Feb 2014

It appears Birmingham has just announced at Cabinet that the numbers there are 2000+ and rising and not all landlords figures in yet.  IDS and DWP estimate for Birmingham was 95 – so it is over 21 times the DWP estimate!

Earlier today LB Westminster (DWP est of just 7 households) revealed it was 124 or almost EIGHTEEN TIMES the DWP estimate

Pictures tell numbers so much better and here is a very quick chart that shows just how wrong, badly wrong IDS and the DWP got this estimate, which I remind you dear reader is of those who have been UNLAWFULLY IMPOSED with the bedroom tax when they are exempt.

PRE96EXEMPT

What charts dont say is that, to date, IDS and the DWP have stolen at least £25m from those who are exempt and have had the bedroom tax imposed unlawfully…TWENTY FIVE MILLION.

Thanks to the data and research from ReClaim this means that about £17m has been stolen from women; about £4m or so stolen from family carers and a whopping TWENTY TWO MILLION STOLEN FROM THE DISABLED!

Yet we also now  know that IDS is going to change the legislation without debate or discussion on 3 March to make stealing £22m from the disabled lawful.

We need to stop this megalomaniac despot and deluded zealot from doing so.  You could do much worse than look at the very well received bedroom tax campaign pack here to see what you can do to stop the zealous IDS from the orgasm he will have fro being a despot and changing the bedroom tax legislation to make it lawful to steal £22m per year from the disabled

Tory councils gerrymandering over the pre 1996 exempt issue?

I receive lots of calls and emails on a daily basis over the pre 1996 issue usually from tenants thanking me for the part I played in this and all I did was publicise the issue when the real credit goes to Peter Barker.

A number of these today have really interested me and they all concern Tory run councils that still have council stock such as Basildon in Essex.

What seems to be going on is that tenants receive a letter from the council on letterhead which says ‘Housing and Revenues’ so it could be HB or the Housing Department.  The letter states you have a credit on your rent account so please fill in the attached and we will send you the money by direct transfer into your account.

The ‘credit’ in the account exactly matches the bedroom tax to date for the property and the tenants it is being sent to just happen to be pre 1996 cases! Note as this point these letters have been sent to a few tenants with differing bedroom tax figures on their respective properties and so knowing the differing bedroom tax amounts suggests it is not a scam letter either

There is no revision letter of the HB bedroom tax decision (the revised pre1996 decision) or is there any other notification such as your HB will be paid in full henceforth which accompanies it.  A few tenants have then phoned Basildon HB to be told “we don’t send out letters anymore!!!!)  They could send out an ‘ordinary’ letter they said which could take about 8 weeks!!

I kid you not reader and those who know anything at all about HB will know what is going on here.

To explain:

  • Every time a new decision is made on your HB the local council HAS to inform you by letter of the change in decision
  • The pre 1996 issue is a new (revised) decision
  • So Basildon Council HAS to inform the tenant and also
  • Has to inform the DWP that this is a pre 1996 case

Here we see Tory run Basildon Council trying to circumvent its duties by not sending out a new benefit decision (unlawful anyone?) and also keeps the pre-1996 exemption cock up numbers below what they really are to spare DWPs blushes!

Basildon is the heart of Essex Man that political phenomenon which has seen it be staunchly Thatcherite during her terms then staunchly Blairite during his terms and now back as Conservative again.  Still I am sure the Minister for Local Government will not like this gerrymandering at all in any local council as he is the MP for the neighbouring constituency arent you Eric Pickles?  Anyone starting to see the POLITICAL significance of the pre 1996 exempt bedroom tax issue which is correctly called an OFFICIAL ERROR and not a loophole?

Hmmm !

Oh by the way I was informed from a reliable source that the DWP estimate of a maximum 5000 has been taken from the Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE) for pre 1996 cases.  As far as I am aware the SHBE does NOT contain data such as tenancy start date or tenancy succession dates so just how DWP can use the SHBE to estimate their figure …..curiouser and curiouser!!