Is anyone going to the bedroom tax demos on Saturday?

d87francis

There are now nearly 60 demonstrations taking place across the country on Saturday at 1pm. Here's a map of where your nearest is:https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=208671293334448166361.0004d7bc5829630344d00&hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=53.412166,-2.311646&spn=6.088699,7.247779&source=embed

At the Oxford one we are all dressing up in pyjamas and are turning the town centre into a bedroom for the day!

"This weekend, Saturday 16 March, over 50 protests are taking place (mostly at 1pm) throughout Britain against the Bedroom Tax, to send a clear and unequivocal message to David Cameron that we’re united in opposition to this cruel, unworkable and counter-productive attack on poor and vulnerable people.

The events are intended to be family friendly occasions and people of all political persuasions are welcome, but organisers ask that anyone with anything other than peaceful intentions stay away. The police are experiencing cuts too, and they want these events to run as smoothly as possible for them."

peat

Seen the forecast?

Rain - The mortal enemy of mass protests.

MattC59

Bedroom tax ? What's that then ?

daviesee

Any excuse for students to get in their onesies.

VTech

It's a great idea in principle. People getting free homes on welfare do not need extra bedrooms for people not living in the property. Why should working class pay tax for an unemployed person to have a 3 bed house paid for by the masses ?

http://www.housing.org.uk/policy/welfare_reform/‘under-occupation’_penalty.aspx

It's about to become law so we all k ow the rules, why fight it?
I'd say its like going to the airport with heavy luggage. As long as your made aware of the rules accept the consequences.

ballysmate

I agree with Vtech.
Social housing is to give prople a start in life with an incentive to try to improve their circumstances theirselves. People should be encouraged to move on when their income increases to allow them to do so.

ben@31

Ballysmate wrote:

I agree with Vtech.
Social housing is to give prople a start in life with an incentive to try to improve their circumstances theirselves. People should be encouraged to move on when their income increases to allow them to do so.

Maybe they would move out if they could get a mortgage.

Young people are getting priced out of home ownership. I've heard of people needing a 10% deposit on a £100,000 plus house. They get a loan to pay the deposit for a loan!

ShutUpLegs

Perhaps to save more money we should stop paying out £80 billion a year to old people on benefits as well.

AchillesLeftKnee

Seems like a demo in support of higher rents at the expense of the young and lower paid to me. Who's organising it? ARLA? One of the landlords associations?

@ben31

Mortgage deposits are normal. It was the 00's that were abnormal. The problem now is the cost of housing relative to incomes, which has yet to adjust to reflect a more normal mortgage market. It will adjust, possibly quite violently. The only question is when.

daviesee

For truly affordable housing to exist we need to go back to a time when a house cost 2 1/2 times your salary, or 3 times joint for a couple.
For this to happen wages have to increase dramatically or house prices fall dramatically.
Guess which one is more likely.
Actually, the status quo is most likely. So you may as well stop whinging.

VTech

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Perhaps to save more money we should stop paying out £80 billion a year to old people on benefits as well.

If you were half as clever as you try to make out you would realise that by running this tax (really an incentive to get people out of large homes when they are not needed) we can actually afford to pay pensioners.
This wont effect pensioners, we need to support pensioners who have worked all of their and less on people who for whatever reason wont/can't work.

BillyMansell

VTech wrote:

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Perhaps to save more money we should stop paying out £80 billion a year to old people on benefits as well.

If you were half as clever as you try to make out you would realise that by running this tax (really an incentive to get people out of large homes when they are not needed) we can actually afford to pay pensioners.
This wont effect pensioners, we need to support pensioners who have worked all of their and less on people who for whatever reason wont/can't work.

If you weren't such a simple-minded fool ignorant of the topic you would know that many of those complaining aren't the result of won't/can't work.

VTech

BillyMansell wrote:

VTech wrote:

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Perhaps to save more money we should stop paying out £80 billion a year to old people on benefits as well.

If you were half as clever as you try to make out you would realise that by running this tax (really an incentive to get people out of large homes when they are not needed) we can actually afford to pay pensioners.
This wont effect pensioners, we need to support pensioners who have worked all of their and less on people who for whatever reason wont/can't work.

If you weren't such a simple-minded fool ignorant of the topic you would know that many of those complaining aren't the result of won't/can't work.

Explain to my simple mind why anyone needs a 2/3/4 bedroom home unless 2/3/4 people are living there ?
Dont use the disabled line because people with disabilities (quite rightly so) are allowed a spare room.
The reference is to people living in homes, taking rooms that are not needed.
I eagerly await your reply.

So many people here are desperate to fight with everything. I get upset when people in need are dealt a bad blow but we can not get away from the fact that there are many people milking the system and the genuine needy suffer because of that. How can a family of 5 be expected to live in a 2 bed flat whilst a man and wife can have a 3 bed house and never want to work a day in their life ?

Monkeypump

Ah, less than a page and the insults are flying. Didn't we learn from other recent threads?

I agree with VTech on this. Okay, the 'rules' could probably do with a little fine tuning, but essentially why should those on benefits have rooms they don't NEED? If you want a spare room, pay for it. That's what most of us have to do.

Anyway, seems a good reason for a day out if you're a hobbyist protester.

Drfabulous0

Ok so look at it this way, I have a three bedroom house which is privately rented, I live with my wife and three sons. I have recently been made redundant and am having to claim housing benefit. Under the new rules I cannot claim housing benefit for a three bedroom house because it is now expected that my two older boys should share and that my youngest, who is a baby, should sleep in our room. I was fine in my home until the goalposts were moved but now unless I can find the extra money from somewhere I will have to move to a two bedroom property. The crazy thing is that two bed houses round here are more than I am currently paying.

BillyMansell

Monkeypump wrote:

Ah, less than a page and the insults are flying. Didn't we learn from other recent threads?

I agree with VTech on this. Okay, the 'rules' could probably do with a little fine tuning, but essentially why should those on benefits have rooms they don't NEED? If you want a spare room, pay for it. That's what most of us have to do.

Anyway, seems a good reason for a day out if you're a hobbyist protester.

Blimey, I know it's Red Nose Day but is everyone being sponsored to be simple today?

Social housing isn't just for those on benefits but also for those on low income; carers, foster carers and partners of those in the armed services are just a few and who may require at some times to have a vacant room. The exemptions list continues to grow, but still excludes foster carers of more then one child, and the fund set up to compensate financial shortfall is already woefully inadequate and it systems deliberately obstructive.

The campaign of misinformation peddled by the government to dupe the likes of yourself into seeing this as a 'them and us' situation has led to you thinking this is about catching scroungers when it's nothing of the sort, unless you consider foster carers and soldiers as scroungers, and it's not about reorganising social housing either.

ooermissus

Rules have been written so they don't apply to pensioners receiving benefits (pension credit). The government is also considering shelling out more money to help old people stay in big houses they no longer need. Seems to me the system is progressively being skewed in favour of the old, at the expense of the young.

bdu98252

For the bedroom tax to actually be a tax would it not have to be linked to something like earnings or a spend like PAYE or VAT for example. The argument appears to be that based around a reduction in a state benefit to either non working individuals or those on low incomes. Perhaps all those at the demo will be able to demostrate that whilst I have to live within my means it is fair to allow others a standard of living to which their income would not allow.

Welcome to PC Britain.

Monkeypump

BillyMansell wrote:

Monkeypump wrote:

Ah, less than a page and the insults are flying. Didn't we learn from other recent threads?

I agree with VTech on this. Okay, the 'rules' could probably do with a little fine tuning, but essentially why should those on benefits have rooms they don't NEED? If you want a spare room, pay for it. That's what most of us have to do.

Anyway, seems a good reason for a day out if you're a hobbyist protester.

Blimey, I know it's Red Nose Day but is everyone being sponsored to be simple today?

Social housing isn't just for those on benefits but also for those on low income; carers, foster carers and partners of those in the armed services are just a few and who may require at some times to have a vacant room. The exemptions list continues to grow, but still excludes foster carers of more then one child, and the fund set up to compensate financial shortfall is already woefully inadequate and it systems deliberately obstructive.

The campaign of misinformation peddled by the government to dupe the likes of yourself into seeing this as a 'them and us' situation has led to you thinking this is about catching scroungers when it's nothing of the sort, unless you consider foster carers and soldiers as scroungers, and it's not about reorganising social housing either.

No, perhaps you're being sponsored to be an inaccurate mind-reader, or to put words in my mouth?

I agree that the foster carer situation is unfair, and as acknowledged already, there is some fine tuning to be done. Of course it's not perfect, but in essence I agree with the policy. There is a ridiculous - and unjustified - sense of entitlement around this. If you don't need a spare room, why should you have it when you're not funding it? If you still want to keep it, you pay for it. By definition, if it's spare, it's not NEEDED. Get the criteria right (which they might not be at the moment), and it works*.

*Making the ridiculous assumption that all other benefit schemes and associated assessments work in unison.

Monkeypump

bdu98252 wrote:

For the bedroom tax to actually be a tax would it not have to be linked to something like earnings or a spend like PAYE or VAT for example. The argument appears to be that based around a reduction in a state benefit to either non working individuals or those on low incomes. Perhaps all those at the demo will be able to demostrate that whilst I have to live within my means it is fair to allow others a standard of living to which their income would not allow.

Welcome to PC Britain.

Well said.

Team4Luke

ben@31 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

I agree with Vtech.
Social housing is to give prople a start in life with an incentive to try to improve their circumstances theirselves. People should be encouraged to move on when their income increases to allow them to do so.

Maybe they would move out if they could get a mortgage.

Young people are getting priced out of home ownership. I've heard of people needing a 10% deposit on a £100,000 plus house. They get a loan to pay the deposit for a loan!

not just young people. Nobody gets it, and nobody is willing to say it because of the past huge swathes of people with a vested interest. But here are the realy facts, wages have not kept up with house prices, you wouldn't expect them to but equally nothing was done to prevent the never ending increases in house prices since the 80's boom days, when everyone was defualt adding on another £10k because their neighbours house was similar or they had fitted a new kitchen for £5k and then added on £15 just for funsies.
Forget any of the dips in the property market as of recent or now, the drops pail into insignificance against the past increases, they will never ever drop to their original reasonable prices. Example wise, houses have gone up by double and tripple, yet wages are the same, nobody gets their salary doubled epsecially the working class masses and fixed income staff, for most of us we just get the cost of living raise each year, couple of percent etc. So your right, we now have a situation where an everage starter sized home is around seven times average salary, it is not they can't find a deposit, it is they can not afford the house. Recently spotted an advert for a new house, "starter home" it was £210,000 ! .
What we need are salary matched housing, ie proper small houses, even the like of mobile home size stuff aimed at those with available income that they can afford. A complete rethink on housing needs.

Monkeypump

Or hoof the 1-child couple out of a council-paid 3-bed house and give to a couple with 4 kids (for example). Keep the cycle going, so that the accomodation available gets closer to those that have the 'need' rather than the 'want' or 'I should have'.

Or, if it's a bit harsh to hoof them out, make them offset the cost. Perhaps a tax on spare bedrooms would do it...

The issue of salary vs. mortgage is another kettle of fish, but if people can't afford to buy they might have a better chance of being put in an appropriate authority paid accom.

AchillesLeftKnee

daviesee wrote:

For truly affordable housing to exist we need to go back to a time when a house cost 2 1/2 times your salary, or 3 times joint for a couple.
For this to happen wages have to increase dramatically or house prices fall dramatically.
Guess which one is more likely.
Actually, the status quo is most likely. So you may as well stop whinging.

Not sure about that. Even a brief look at, say, the last 40 years of British economic history shows there's no such thing as the status quo over anything but the shortest of terms. To not expect the unexpected would be bonkers even in more conventional times, but to do so in a period of such extreme monetary policy coupled with tonking great deficit spending by the state would be simply illogical.

CiB

That's not gonna happen is it, not unless the state takes full control of the housing market. We paid whatever we paid for ours a few years ago, the house is now apparently worth a lot more. Are you suggesting I should sell it for what I paid for it to kickstart the market, then stand by and watch the guy who bought it put it straight back on the market for something around its current value? "Here you go mate - have this £100k. I don't want that pile of dosh, and nor will my kids when they need to buy."

Who starts it all off? Who has the nerve to be the first to drop the asking price by a 50% and then watch as everyone points and laughs as they take the profit leaving Mug #1 effectively homeless. People can afford houses at this price as enough are sold.

MaxwellBygraves

If you're worried about the bedroom tax, the housing charity Shelter have a useful guide online that might help.

ooermissus

CiB wrote:

Who starts it all off? Who has the nerve to be the first to drop the asking price by a 50% and then watch as everyone points and laughs as they take the profit leaving Mug #1 effectively homeless. People can afford houses at this price as enough are sold.

Higher interest rates, reduced support to old people to stay in large houses, a more regulated mortgage market, higher property taxes - there are a variety of ways to send house prices back down to where they belong.

Any political party that implemented them would be out of power for a generation though. Households owe even more than the government, so the housing market sits on very shaky foundations.

metronome

CiB wrote:

People can afford houses at this price as enough are sold.

Yes! People can buy houses... Unfortunately people encompasses several very different demographics - some of whom really can't! For instance our younger, jobless generations who are our society of the future.

ooermissus

Also people can afford houses based on the market being pumped up by £1.3 trillion of debt and an expectation that future price rises would make property investment a surefire winner.

ShutUpLegs

It's hard to know what to think of men who grew up in mansions penalising the poor for living in a house with a spare bedroom.

kieranb

Not impressed at all with this tax, doesn't currently affect me but can see the problems it will cause to many ordinary people. The vunerable make an easy target, all you need is a few cliched examples of welfare spongers to justify it.

MisterMuncher

VTech wrote:

ShutUpLegs wrote:

Perhaps to save more money we should stop paying out £80 billion a year to old people on benefits as well.

If you were half as clever as you try to make out you would realise that by running this tax (really an incentive to get people out of large homes when they are not needed) we can actually afford to pay pensioners.
This wont effect pensioners, we need to support pensioners who have worked all of their and less on people who for whatever reason wont/can't work.

It most certainly will affect pensioners living in social housing, particularly those who've been in the same house for a long time, perhaps raising a family there, who have subsequently moved out. It seems obvious to me the people most likely to suffer will be pensioners/ the middle aged.

The tax that's really needed here is one to make the charging of extortionate rents by private sector landlords less attractive. After all, the housing benefit goes to them, not the claimant. Perhaps 40-50% tax on all benefit-derived rent over and above that assessed by an independent body.