"Bedroom tax" to cost social tenants £1,400 a year
Friday, 9 December 2011 9:16 AM
Families in social housing in London who are deemed to be under-occupying their home face losing up to £1,400 a year, according to the National Housing Federation (NHF).
The figure is significantly higher than the government's estimate that its plan to cut housing benefit will affect 70,000 families in the capital and cost them an average of £1,090 a year. The NHF says the true cost of the "bedroom tax" will be up to £27 a week or £1,385 a year.
Under the cuts that would apply from 2013 families will be penalised for under-occupying their home even if every bedroom is in regular use. This might include cases where teenagers have a separate bedroom rather than share, separated parents who keep a bedroom for when their children visit and foster parents whose bedrooms are occupied by foster children.
Anyone deemed to have one bedroom too many will lose 15 per cent of their housing benefit and anyone with two too many will lose 25 per cent. Two thirds of those affected are disabled but pensioners are exempted.
Across England as a whole, the cut will affect 670,000 families and this will rise to 760,000 by 2020 as the pension age rises.
Ahead of the report stage of the Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords, the NHF is calling for the rules to be made more flexible to allow tenants one more bedroom than the current rules allow.
David Orr, NHF chief executive, said: "This will have disastrous implications for a huge number of people already struggling to make ends meet in the tough economic climate, including foster carers, grandparents, disabled people and smaller families."
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