Spare room tax

[Phoenix]

He did die two years ago; without wanting to sound heartless, there has to come a time when the state stops subsidising rooms for the dead.

 

I wonder if you would be understanding of a toff who wanted to defer inheritance tax indefinitely too. My guess is no.

 

 

Love the way you call it a subsidy just like the guys in government.

 

I imagine the toffs you speak of, dont pay a penny in inheritance tax never mind deferring.

[dennis tooth]

[melons]

Tory council to force 21-year-olds to share rooms | News | Inside Housing

 

The headline i didn't have too much of an issue with, if a room is big enough then i wouldn't have an issue with the my kids sharing.

 

This however is concerning...

 

Under Kensington and Chelsea’s new tenancy strategy and allocations policy, which will now be put out to public consultation, future tenants would be given a 12 month introductory tenancy, followed by a two-year or, normally, five-year fixed-term agreement. At the end of this term they would be assessed to see if they still qualify for the property.

 

They could lose the home if the household is no longer the right size for the property, their income levels have breached earning limits, they have savings exceeding £25,000, they have bought an interest in another property, or they have breached the tenancy agreement.

 

After all, they'll need a few social houses to accommodate the staff that clean, butler and provide childcare for the private houses in the area, should those people do well and get ideas above their station, well they can jolly well leave and move to another borough.

 

People in some areas will be massively stuffed if/when this "pay to stay" threshold is introduced.

 

A working family of 4 in the same 2/3 bed household (because the kids can't afford to leave) would in essence not be entitled to live in the house because with all 4 working they've breached the income levels yet all 4 could be on a pitiful wage.

 

 

 

Oh and i can't be the only one to have only just come across this pay to stay lark that would vary between local authorities?

[Rico1304]

Melons, I love you dearly but I think this is fair. If you re-qualify no problem, if you don't you have to make way for those in greater need.

[lifetime fan]

How much bedroom tax are the royals going to pay?

[Champ]

How much bedroom tax are the royals going to pay?

 

Who does own their multiple properties?

[lifetime fan]

Who does own their multiple properties?

 

 

They do apparently.

[Champ]

How much bedroom tax are the royals going to pay?

 

Who does own their multiple properties?

 

They do apparently.

 

So, none then; which is exactly the point....penalising those who can least afford it while turning a blind eye to the tax avoidance schemes of the very rich

[lifetime fan]

So, none then; which is exactly the point....penalising those who can least afford it while turning a blind eye to the tax avoidance schemes of the very rich

 

 

I've given up being angry.

 

The Father-in -Law is a retired accountant, has an incredible memory and has a passionate hate of all 3 main political parties.

 

The fact his name is Colin is just a bonus for him.

[Champ]

 

I've given up being angry.

 

The Father-in -Law is a retired accountant' date=' has an incredible memory and has a passionate hate of all 3 main political parties.

 

The fact his name is Colin is just a bonus for him.[/quote']

 

There is only one thing I think of when you mention him now

[Anubis]

Colin the accountant. Superb.

[Red Lead]

Bedroom Tax victim commits suicide: Grandmother Stephanie Bottrill blames government in tragic note - Mirror Online

 

Bedroom Tax victim commits suicide: Grandmother Stephanie Bottrill blames government in tragic note

12 May 2013 07:59

Grandmother who had to pay extra £20 a week throws herself in front of motorway lorry.

 

Ten days ago Stephanie Bottrill sat in the redbrick terrace house which had been home for 18 years to write notes to her loved ones, the Sunday People reports .

 

She ripped the pages from a spiral-bound notebook and placed them neatly in little brown envelopes.

 

There was one for her son. Another for her daughter. Her mother. Friends. And a very special one for the year-old grandson she doted on.

 

Then in the early hours of last Saturday Stephanie, 53, left her home for the last time, leaving her cat Joey behind as the front-door clicked shut.

 

She crossed her road in Meriden Drive, Solihull, to drop one of her letters and her house keys through a neighbour’s letterbox. Then she walked 15 minutes through the sleeping estate to Junction 4 of the M6.

 

And at 6.15am she walked straight into the path of a northbound lorry and was killed instantly. Stephanie Bottrill had become the first known suicide victim of the hated Bedroom Tax.

 

In the letter to her son, Steven, 27, she had written: “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government.”

 

Stephanie was tormented over having to find £20 a week to pay for the two under-occupied bedrooms she had been assessed for.

 

Days before her death she told neighbours: “I can’t afford to live any more.”

 

Solihull council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who knows the family well, said: “I’m absolutely appalled this poor lady has taken her own life because she was worried how she would pay the Bedroom Tax.

 

“I hope the Government will take notice and reconsider this policy.”

 

The police came to Steven’s door at 9.30 last Saturday morning. They were there with his sister Laura, 23, and he knew something terrible had happened. They told him his mum had taken her own life.

 

He said: “It was a shock at first. You just ask why? The policeman told me she had left notes. I was on my own, looking after my little boy.

 

“I just wanted to keep looking after him, to keep it all in. I told the police to keep the note. I was still getting my head round it.”

 

So it was not until Sunday that Steven was ready to read the note.

 

He said: “I couldn’t believe it. She said not to blame ourselves, it was the Government and what they were doing that caused her to do it.

 

“She was fine before this Bedroom Tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people in offices and big houses.

 

“They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum.”

 

On the Thursday before she died – when she wrote the farewell letters – Stephanie had phoned her son to say she was struggling to cope.

 

He promised to get help and next day phoned her GP.

 

Stephanie came home from the GP’s surgery with sleeping tablets.

 

That Friday teatime, Steven came to see her after he finished work. He tried to reassure her, telling her everything would be OK. He says now he should have hugged her but he thought it might upset her.

 

On the way home he resolved to take her to A&E next day and stay there until she got the help she needed.

 

That evening a neighbour took Stephanie some dinner. Like Steven, she thought Stephanie would cope. But neither saw her again.

 

In the early hours of Saturday, Stephanie headed downstairs, past boxes of her things packed up and ready to go.

 

Boxes marked “kitchen” and “bedroom”. Stephanie had nowhere to go. But she had packed anyway so when the council found her a smaller place she would be prepared.

 

Steven said: “She didn’t want to go but she knew she had to. She couldn’t afford to stay. It was too hard.

 

“She wasn’t eating properly. There wasn’t any proper food. There were about 30 tins of custard.”

 

Stephanie had lived in her £320-a-month home for 18 years, but couldn’t cope with the extra £80 she had to find every month.

 

She needed to downsize but nothing suitable was offered to her.

 

And she was upset she would have to leave the home in which she raised her two children as a single mother.

 

The well-kept back garden was Stephanie’s pride and joy. She had buried her favourite pet cats there and she liked to sit out there in the sun and remember them.

 

Steven remembers they didn’t have much as they grew up. His mum would struggle to afford clothes and food but they were happy and always well-turned out.

 

As a child Stephanie was diagnosed with the auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis.

 

The illness made her weak and she had to take constant medication.

 

Steven said she wanted to work, but there was no way she could.

 

Doctors had told her she was too ill to hold down a job, but she had never been registered as disabled, so she lived without disability benefit. After splitting with the children’s father, Stephanie raised Laura and Steven on her own.

 

Steven, an HGV driver, said: “Even though it was difficult for Mum bringing us up on her own, we were really happy here.”

 

Eventually, Steven left to set up in his own place with his own family.

 

It was close enough to visit his mum and he came round whenever he could.

 

Then two months ago Laura also moved out and into a flat with her long-term partner. It happened quickly and Stephanie struggled at first.

 

It also meant that instead of losing 14 per cent of her housing benefit for one spare bedroom she would now lose 25 per cent for two rooms.

 

But friends and family rallied round and she began to adjust on her own.

 

She took the decision to tell the council she was living in a three-bedroomed house on her own.

 

The £80 per month extra she would have to pay was too much for her. She would have to leave her home.

 

Steven said: “She was sad about Laura going but she had got over that and was coping. Being asked for the extra Bedroom Tax money was just too much for her.”

 

Stephanie told her next-door neighbour Tracey Hurley: “I cannot afford to live any more.”

 

She was visited by officials, who told her she would be charged for any repairs to her property.

 

That would whittle away the £2,000 she had been offered by the council to move home. It meant Stephanie had to strip wallpaper and lift carpets herself. She also had to mend her back fence.

 

And they failed to find a suitable property for her – the bungalow they offered was a 30-minute walk from a bus stop and miles from her family and friends.

 

So Stephanie was trapped in a house she couldn’t afford.

 

And neighbours did their best to help as she faced losing her home.

 

Neighbour Tracey, 49, said: “Her garden meant so much to her.

 

“She called it her special place and the one place she felt at peace.

 

“But they were going to take that from her. She just couldn’t stand it.” Tracey did her best to care for her friend and saw her on the Friday before she died. She said: “Stephanie hadn’t eaten for three days. She was desperate.

 

“We were having a barbecue and she popped her head over the fence to say hello. She didn’t want to socialise so I took her some dinner.

 

“When I went round I hugged her and told her to just come and knock on the door if she needed me.

 

“I told her not to do anything stupid. The council would have to help her. She asked me for another hug. Then in the morning the police came. I couldn’t believe it.”

 

Other neighbours on the estate are being hit with the Bedroom Tax.

 

Tracey said: “They are making me pay it and it’s going to be tough but people don’t have any choice.

 

“This is not just politics, this is people’s lives.”

 

Next Friday, Tracey will be among friends and family at the funeral.

 

The family were struggling to pay so the Sunday People has made a contribution.

 

Stephanie’s death didn’t make headlines locally. But her friends know exactly what happened to her.

 

And they believe the shock of her death will be felt far outside her community.

 

Tracey added: “There’s no way Stephanie is going to be the last to die because of this Bedroom Tax. She’s not going to be the only one.”

[Lee909]

How about she writes a note to the poor fucking lorry driver who has to live with that memory.

[Sugar Ape]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-minister-lord-freud-2366182

 

 

 

Bedroom Tax minister Lord Freud has finally admitted there are not enough one-bed homes for victims of the hated levy.

 

But he brazenly tried to shift responsibility for the logjam to local authorities as he tried to defend the tax in the House of Lords.

 

Lord Freud told peers: “Over the past decade the social rented sector has built virtually no single bedrooms.

“We need to make sure we are building the type of accommodation people in this country actually need.”

 

And he insisted that in 10 years only 30,000 one-bed social homes were built against 280,000 in the private sector.

 

Warming to his blame-shifting theme, he went on: “There is a real economic ­mismatch in terms of what we are encouraging the social rented sector to build.”

 

But demand for one-bedroom homes is only now massively outstripping supply because of the hated tax.

 

Councils did not build many small homes because they try to cater for families and they say that before the Bedroom Tax tenants did not need them.

 

Now new figures from Birmingham alone show 11,257 council tenants chasing just 75 available one-bedroom flats.

 

The city council is desperately working on another 113 properties to make them fit for tenants.

But there are more than 5,300 tenants in arrears because of the tax.

 

“More people are coming to us desperate for help,” said Birmingham councillor John Cotton.

 

“The Government is telling them to downsize but there simply aren’t enough one and two-bed properties for them.”

 

 

Earlier Labour’s Baroness Hollis told Lord Freud a few brutal facts of life about the impact of the tax: “Two thirds of the families affected are disabled – fact.

 

“Half of those are already in arrears – fact. Most local authorities are limiting discretionary payments to three months only - fact. There are no smaller properties to move to - fact.”

 

The Sunday People is campaigning to have the tax scrapped for the 660,000 households it affects.

 

Meanwhile Respect MP George Galloway slammed MPs for claiming extra taxpayers’ money for a spare room for visiting children, first revealed in the Sunday People last month.

 

He said 29 MPs who backed the bed tax claimed an additional £64,000.

 

And his Commons motion urged the Government “to end this unfair allowance which can only reflect badly with members of the public.”

 

Meanwhile a grandmother battling cancer has been threatened with eviction from her council home because of the tax – even though she has only days to live.

 

Veronica Kenning, 57, of Shard End in Birmingham, was issued with an eviction notice by the council for refusing to hand over the £23.57-a-week payment.

 

She has been told she has just days left to live by doctors treating her for cancer of the oesophagus.

 

But Veronica, who has suffered from ME for 26 years, vowed to continue her fight to the end.

 

She said: “This is an evil tax. I’m finding it hard to speak now and can’t eat or drink and I feel as if they are waiting for me to die and the problem to go away.”

 

Her local councillor John Cotton, an opponent of the tax said: “I urge her to accept Discretionary Housing Payments support.”

 

Labour's Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions Secretary, said: “David Cameron’s Bedroom Tax is hitting vulnerable people, including 400,000 disabled people.

 

"As Lord Freud has now ­admitted, many have nowhere smaller to move to. For the Tories to try to shift the blame on to local authorities for the problems their policy ­creates is truly shocking.

 

"They should take some responsibility for the distress they have caused and reverse this cruel measure now.

 

They could use money raised by closing tax loopholes. If they won’t, then the next Labour ­government will.”

 

[Bjornebye]

wonder how much the queen pays in spare bedroom tax 

[lifetime fan]

wonder how much the queen pays in spare bedroom tax 

 

Fuck all. We pay her and her scum family.

[lifetime fan]

Blinded, half-paralysed man dies day after benefits are stopped.

 

 

 

Yet another disabled person has died after being declared “fit for work” by DWP contractor Atos, despite being struck down by a crippling illness. Brian McArdle died the day after his disability benefits were stopped, suffering a fatal heart attack which relatives insist was caused by stress related to the decision.

 

The 57 year old Scot, was paralysed down one side of his body, blind in one eye, and couldn’t speak — yet in a bizarre but not uncommon decision Atos thought he wasn’t deserving of Employment and Support Allowance.

 

Figures from the Daily Mirror have revealed that 32 claimants each week — nearly 1,700 per year — have died after they were branded “fit for work”.

 

Criticising the previous incapacity benefits regime in March, then employment minister Chris Grayling said:“To have such a high percentage who are fit for work just emphasises what a complete waste of human lives the current system has been.”

 

Grayling has moved from a metaphorical “waste of lives” to a literal one

[Bjornebye]

Im made up my tax goes on luxury's for the tories. 

[VladimirIlyich]

These cunts in government are really the lowest of the low and the way that we,the public are letting them get away with it is shameful.

The simple plan is to take away all the hope from people and make them desperate to just either do as they are told,while the goverment filled with multi millionaires goes on sating the appetites of the fat cats who pull their strings. Clegg and the LibDems will be sent into the political wilderness for it too and that doesnt help the political system at all. It will continue to be filled with Tory spin offs like UKIP and the BNP.

[Strontium]

I don't know what you think "the public" should do about our democratically elected government, however there is only another 18 months or so until the next election, at which you will be free to vote for a party that doesn't believe £500 a week of tax-free benefits is enough to live on.

[dennis tooth]

Not sure what part of the backroom deal is democratic, public didnt elect them, at your best argument they elected a lab-con coalition.

[stringvest]

Interestingly though the Tories back then never fucked with the military or the police, this lot haven't even had the brains to do that. They've pissed everyone off at some stage and will continue to do so. Big business and extreme wealth is their only friend.

 

If you've resigned yourself to going to hell, it's the only friend you need.

[Pureblood]

I don't know what you think "the public" should do about our democratically elected government, however there is only another 18 months or so until the next election, at which you will be free to vote for a party that doesn't believe £500 a week of tax-free benefits is enough to live on.

 

Negged.

[VladimirIlyich]

I don't know what you think "the public" should do about our democratically elected government, however there is only another 18 months or so until the next election, at which you will be free to vote for a party that doesn't believe £500 a week of tax-free benefits is enough to live on.

You are talking about MPs now arent you?

[Gnasher]

I hope they cut cut and cut some more. Show their disdain for ordinary people, finally force people to take sides.

 

The sooner we get to the end game the better, voting them out dosent kill them, they come back. Swing em from lamposts and cut cut cut em open with rusty blades.