Tenants tell landlord they can take 'bedroom tax' hit

Published by 24publishing for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government, Communities, Development, Local Government

A housing association in the North West says some of the 2,300 tenants it has started to contact about housing benefit cuts believe they can afford to stay in their homes.

Writing in next month's 24housing magazine, Brian Simpson, chief executive of Wirral Partnership Homes (WPH), said the the group had started calling the 2,300 tenants (just less than 20% of its total tenancies) who it believes will experience a deduction from their housing benefit as a result of under-occupying their home.

The new under-occupation rules for the social sector come in next April and affect some 660,000 households. Tenants taking the hit stand to lose £14 a week on average.

Mr Simpson said: "From the 250 conversations with tenants that the team has conducted so far, we have found that 20% want help to downsize and encouragingly, 47% believe at this point, with the information currently available, they can afford to meet the deduction."

WPH estimates that between 500 to 800 tenants are expected to want to downsize to avoid the under-occupation deductions.

Earlier this year, landlords across the North of England warned of tenants creeping into arrears as a result of the deductions.

In addition to the other welfare cuts in non-dependent deductions, the household benefit cap and the decision to pay tenants their benefits directly under Universal Credit from 2013, the changes are coming thick, fast and all at once.

“The combination of what’s happening is almost like the perfect storm descending onto people,” warned Mike Doran, managing director at 15,000-home Plus Dane.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published a revised impact assessment on the effects of the under-occupation rules.

It now estimates that 40,000 claimants – in receipt of partial housing benefit – are likely to find that their entitlement ceases, and they "float off" the benefit completely.

In the original impact assessment - published in February 2011 – it put that figure at 20,000.