Bedroom Tax.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi shipmates, where I live in Cardiff its student land with 4 mosque , and plenty of curry houses and burger joins every day I have begging letters from buy to let landlords to sell my house? But because of this Government cut to student grants and loans we dont have many local students , many are Chinese so we now have a couple of cheap chinese cafes good place to learn to eat with chop sticks, the food is very good, I now feel I am living in a new country not the U.K. !!! The Area is now fast become a part of Eastern europe, with the millions of new people from eastern europe due in 2013-14 My question to you all which books should I buy for christmas present for my family? Chinese for dummys, or Mo s ' Learn Urdu in 6 weeks to speak in your local mosque or Do you understand serbo croat. English books are no good here as its only spoken by a few , very rare to hear any today !! Which ones should I buy???

[happy daze john in oz]

Many years ago in the 18th century a window tax was introduced to raise revenue. The larger houses, mainly owned by the gentry of the day, had the most windows. So to avoid the tax they bricked in the windows. There are still many older houses in London with this. Maybe blocking off the bedrooms is the way to go?

[Jim Brady]

John,I heard a guy on the radio yesterday he lives alone he has one bedroom and one very small box room where a single bed wil just fit in but nothing else.The bedroom tax will affect him so his housing association said that they will remove the wall between the bedroom and box room making one big room,is this crazy or what.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[happy daze john in oz]

Certainly a bit out of left field, but shows how people will find ways to overcome the problem. I can see some three bedroom houses suddenly having an extra amount of lounge room space, on the top floor!!

[Jim Brady]

If this does happen you just could not make it up!!! Take this scenario. parents in receipt of benefits living in three bedroom house.They have two sons in the Armed Forces away serving in Afghanistan they are on a six months tour.The fact that they are away for more than 13 weeks two bedrooms would be unoccupied so the parents would have 25% of their benefit cut,they could always downsize but then where would our heroes live when they finish their tour of duty!!!!This rule does not affect students.
Regards.
Jim.B/

[robpage]

Normally I am in Broad agreement with government savings ideas , especially one that would cut the pensions and benefits of MPs and Senior Civil Servants , but I can see no sense in this bedroom tax on people in Social Housing at all . I personally would not want to live in a one bedroom flat or be forcibly downsized , although there are quite a few Social Houses here that have three bedrooms and one occupant , The occupant having lived there thirty or forty years in many cases , with all the memories stored in the fabric . There are sixteen year olds in flats , with their children , the tenancy underwritten by their social worker who cannot and do not want to return to their parental home because of the family circumstances . We have too many homeless , and this is not a way to house them . The answer is to build more social housing

[Robin Ellis]

This bedroom tax is new to me as I no longer live in the UK. I had a heart attack at first as I thought it was a tax on bedroom occupation / activity!

When we lived in the UK our Coastal District Council had a unique method of using 3 & 4 bedroom houses that will go against this new tax:

A 3 bedroom flat, 4 doors up the road from us, was bought and done up by the council and given to an unmarried mum on benefits at a very low rent.
After she moved in, the father of baby visited regularly. He never contributed towards the child's upkeep and made sure he never lived there. 3 years later, unmarried mum goes to the council office to buy her flat at special rate for existing tenants.
The father of the baby pays CASH for the flat. They sell the flat for huge profit and move out. All perfectly legal.


An estate of ex American Air Force family houses on the edge of our village is taken over by our local coastal council. All the houses are 3 or 4 bedroom, with single or double garages and large gardens. Not one local family on the council house waiting list gets a house.
Most of the houses go to families from other areas, but some go to addicts on rehabilitation programmes (1 ex addict in a 3 bed house with double garage and large garden???), a couple go to single mums and 1 is used to house (sometimes single) immigrants awaiting appeal.

So, in these cases what will the council have to do? Reduce the immigrant's / mum's / addict's benefits by X% - as solo occupant in a 3 bed house - and then give them another X% increase after means testing them? Probably.

[Robin Ellis]

English books are no good here as its only spoken by a few , very rare to hear any today !! Which ones should I buy???

Louis,
Don't bother buying books - emigrate.
"If you can't beat them, join them"

Robin

[Jim Brady]

Robpage,bloody hell 16 year olds in a flat with their family .What age did they start at?I can understand a young girl getting pregnant once thats unlucky but why should they go on to have 5 kids with 5 diffferent fathers. People who have worked hard all their lives being put out of their homes which they have kept in good nick for years to make room for this girl who just wants a life on the social that can't be right.

Robin,you just could'nt buy a house and sell it for a huge profit you had to occupy it for at least 10 years.In that time it would've gone up in value but it was not a fast buck so to speak.
Regards.Jim.B.

[robpage]

Sadly here Jim their start age is Too Young , The social services are housing them in council % Housing Trust accommodation , because they cannot live at home , then instead of needing £100 a week to support themselves they need an extra £500 a month minimum for rent , I think that it is criminal , my teenage daughters-in-law know a lot more about the world than I did at that age , and I know of two teenagers who at fourteen have been aborted already , in my local area , I don't want to get on to that subject , but we have given them all the knowledge about sexuality , homosexuality , in a detail that I never knew until past the age of eighteen , back in the dark ages . They know more about contraception to , but do they do the sensible things , unfortunately they do not . I live near several large centres of social housing , so maybe this locality is skewed when it comes to averages . There are fourteen year old children and younger smoking weed , some with their parents knowledge , and that is why I am not standing on my usual right of centre position , some of these kids get pregnant to start their own family home , at our expense , because the parental home is lacking , certainly in Love , definitely in kindness . I probably hear more because of the grandchildren's age groups and the peer groups that they have . Successive governments hell bent on freedom for these kids seem to have remover responsibility and common sense from the curriculum