Until recently, if you rented from a social sector landlord, the eligible rent was normally the actual rent. Unfortunately all that has changed with the introduction of the ‘Bedroom Tax’

The official name of this change isn’t actually the Bedroom Tax: legally, it is called the…

‘Housing benefit size criteria restrictions for working age claimants in the social rented sector from April 2013’

Not quite as memorable, I think we can agree.

However, the official name does tell us some important things about the Bedroom Tax:

• It only applies if your renting your home in the social rented sector: that’s to say, if your landlord is a housing association, your local council, or someone like that. Tenants of Private Landlords already have their rent restricted in a similar way.
• It only applies to working age claimants, so if you’re old enough to get Pension Credit you don’t have to worry about it.
• It restricts your Housing Benefit depending on the size of home that the government thinks you need.

How does it restrict your Housing Benefit?

Basically, the following people or groups of people are entitled to a bedroom:

• A couple
• Anyone who is 16 or older
• Two children of the same sex (and under 16)
• Two children under 10 years old
• Any other children
• A carer whose normal home is some where else but stays overnight to provide care to someone who is disabled.

You then tot up the total number of rooms this gives you and compare it with the actual number of bedrooms in your home.

• If you have the same number of bedrooms (or less) everything is fine
• If you have one too many bedrooms the rent used for the Housing Benefit calculation (your ‘eligible rent’) isn’t your actual rent, but your actual rent reduced by 14%
• If you have two or more too many bedrooms the rent used for the Housing Benefit calculation (your ‘eligible rent’) isn’t your actual rent, but your actual rent reduced by 25%

John and Patsy Jones have five children: three Girls (Sarah (6), Ruth (13), and Sally (15)), and two boys (Simon (8), and Mark (11)). The Housing Association charges them £100 rent per week for their house, which has five bedrooms. They used to get all their rent paid by Housing Benefit (Patsy gets income based Employment and Support Allowance). John and Patsy get one room Simon and Sarah are both under 10, so get one room Ruth and Sally are the same sex, so they get one room That leaves Mark, who gets one room. So their Housing Benefit will be based on them needing a four bedroom property. Because their house actually has five bedrooms, their eligible rent is their actual rent reduced by 14%, so they now only get £86 per week Housing Benefit, and have to make up the difference (£14) themselves. (It doesn’t matter who actually lives in each room. So looking at our example, I imagine that in reality Mark and Simon might end up sharing. That doesn’t affect the way the calculation works.)

The rules do give some help in some special situations:

• If you have a son or daughter who normally lives with you but is in the armed forces, you are entitled for a bedroom for them while they are on active operations, however long they are away, provided that they intend to come back to your home at some point in the future
• If someone who was living in the house dies, and this reduces the number of bedrooms you are entitled to, the reduction in your Housing Benefit doesn’t take effect until a year after they died.
• If you haven’t needed to claim Housing Benefit for at least 52 weeks until now, you get 13 weeks before your rent is reduced.

But apart from these, there isn't any help in the rules for people in difficult situations. As well as this, the rules are not written particularly well. For example, the Bedroom Tax rules don't actually say what is and is not a bedroom.

Since the rules came in, there have been a lot of court cases about them. Some of these cases have helped claimants, and some have not. And the matter is still not settled, so things may get better, or worse. 

So if your benefit is reduced by the Bedroom Tax, here's some things you need to consider...

If you have a severely disabled child, that child should be allowed a room to themselves. This because of an important Court of Appeal decision about this, which looked at the situation from the point of view of disability discrimination. It is for the Housing Benefit decision maker to decide if the child is 'disabled enough': if you disagree with them about this, you should appeal. If any of your rooms is smaller than 70 square feet, and they say it is a bedroom, you should appeal, saying that it is too small to count as a bedroom (this is because a tribunal judge noticed that under overcrowding rules an adult needs a bedroom that is at least 70 square feet). The DWP does not accept this argument, but that's just their opinion. A tribunal may disagree with them. If you use any of your rooms for special reasons, for example storing equipment related to your disability, you should say it doesn't count as a bedroom, and appeal if refused. This is because a tribunal judge in Scotland decided that if a room was being 'reasonably used' for something else, it should not count as a bedroom. Winning a case like this will depend on whether the judge thinks your use is reasonable. If you need extra bedrooms because of a disability - for example, you are a couple and have to live in separate rooms because one of you is disabled, you should argue for this and appeal if you are refused. However you will probably need specialist help with this, because this is still being argued about in the courts.

If you have been issued with a decision more than a month ago, you should still appeal, and say that you want your appeal to be considered even though it's late. There is a final time limit of 13 months.

What can you do if you are affected by this?

I don’t like these new rules. Many people (maybe you) will be faced with a choice of major upheaval or a reduction in income. They might have lived in a place for years, have worked hard to make the place nice, and be part of a community of neighbours: there may not be a smaller property available for them anyway. But they’re here and we need to get used to them.

Here are some things to think about:

• Check to see if any of the exceptions I have mentioned apply to you.
• If you do need extra bedrooms because of disability issues, argue for this, and challenge them if they don’t get the result you need seek further advice.
• You can apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment from your local authority (council). This is a top-up of your Housing Benefit you can sometimes get if they agree that your situation is unusual and difficult. The problem is the word ‘discretionary’: it means you have no right to this help, and if, as is likely, lots of new people will be asking for this help, they might turn out to be hard to get.

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