Bonanza For The Lawyers?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/04/bedroom-tax-investigate-un-housing
It seems that not giving away enough public money for empty bedrooms is now a human rights issue. What about my human right not to have my tax money squandered on professional spongers?

[Mamyalynne]

Oh for heavens sake - have you fully investigated how it affects everyone ? and how in the long term it will cost more in benefits?

[Zacs-Master]

Where do Lawyers come into the equation?

[pixie373]

There does need to be some sort of motivation for people to move out of houses that are now too big for them. There just isn't enough to go around. We have quite a few clients that had 3/4 bed houses before their children moved out and still live in them, although some haven't been upstairs for 20-odd years. While others are overcrowded. Maybe they should be reassessed more often and offered smaller places when appropriate. I'm not sure that happens.

[ToraToraTora]

the benefits bill is by far the largest bill in the country, it surely must be the best place to try and find savings.

[ToraToraTora]

Zacs, when HR is mentioned lawyers are never far behind.

[Zacs-Master]

Ah, right. Or is that Far right?

[Mamyalynne]

I am not averse to singletons, especially the elderly being helped to move to somewhere more suited to their lifestyle, if that is there are any one bed properties available but it is hard to see how a family can be uprooted and maybe even have to change their children's school because they have a spare room usually just sufficient for a single bed.

Disabled couples have to prove medically without doubt that they need to sleep aprt, not demeaning at all is it.

Most will soldier on and pay the difference and food and heat will be scarcer still this winter.

[FredPuli43]

A UN report? Well. that will come to nothing, though it is, of course, extremely valuable that the UN should be spending money (whose?) in employing someone to visit houses in countries that are already subject to human rights legislation and which have plenty of lawyers and interested parties to ensure that the law is complied with.

Anyway, I expect Russia to veto anything !

[jno]

ah yes, when the poll tax was causing similar distress among the poor, one Tory minister's suggestion was that if they couldn't afford it they should sell one of their paintings.

I wonder if they will come up with a similar humanitarian response this time?

[Svejk]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
do you actually believe that.

[youngmafbog]

jno, that is sheer rubbish. The poll tax system is a fairer tax as it spreads it amongst more people and so should be less per person. The way it was implemented, by many trouble making labour councils, was a lot of the problem.

TTT, is this the Brazilian who invited herself here? Teh right-on lefty one?

Pity she does not look at poverty in her home land and kepp her ruddy nose out of our affairs.

[Gromit]

The problem with the poll tax was that it spread it amongst more people. In particular, those unable to pay. When you are charging homeless people poll tax to stay in a doss house, you know the system is barmy.

The council tax also has many anomalies, but it is a least it is based on some geasp of reality.

[ToraToraTora]

The community charge was opposed mostly because, shock horror, many realised that they'd have to contribute to local funding when previously they had not. All it did was remove the old tax/proprrty ownership link. Much fairer than what we have now, 1 person pays for 1 persons worth of local authority, simples!

[Gromit]

^^^

As I said. Its main problem was ignoring ability to pay. A homeless dosser and someone in a mansion were being charged the same. That may have been fairer, but was largely percieved as unfair.

The present system is unfair because a single person household is charged the same (or a % of) a family of 10 adults living in a house.

[tonyav]

This 'Bedroom tax' is hurting some people.
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2013/09/09/600k-arrears-in-sandwell-as-bedroom-tax-hits/

[ummmm]

Poll tax wasn't fair!

[tonyav]

Maggie thought it was, ummmm.

[jim360]

Before I start I should say that I don't really agree with this explanation, but then I'm not a lawyer so there may be more legal sense to it after all. Anyway: the Human Rights issues come in because inevitably there are some people who will be hit hard enough by this cut in HB that they have to move out, either through their own choice or because of eviction. But then of course this requires that there be somewhere else for them to move to, which isn't always the case as we have a shortage of "small" houses.

This is where the issue lies, then: a government law can, and will, lead to some people having to move out of where they live. This could be seen as violation of Protocol 1, Article 1 of the ECHR, "right to possessions". By contrast there is no Human Right to "not have tax money squandered on ... spongers".

On the other hand, since Housing Benefit is given to people to help them pay rent, do they really 'possess' the house they live in? That's my somewhat naive argument against the point I've made above. At the moment the HB under-occupancy reduction hasn't been tested in a Human Rights court. More serious challenges relate to what constitutes a bedroom -- a First-Tier Tribunal decision in Scotland recently ruled that a bedroom under a certain size cannot be called a bedroom. See here for the legal issues, but note that the page could be out-of-date, depending on whether or not the above decision is overturned at a higher level.

http://www.housing.org.uk/policy/policy-news/social-housing-size-criteria-and-statutory-overcrowding

[ummmm]

Tony...and she had to resign over it.