Affordable Rent and the Bedroom Tax Revisited

An article on Speye in October 2013 argued that the Affordable Rent model (AR)-  in which social landlords can charge up to 80% of private rent levels - gives them an incentive to evict the bedroom tax tenant.  9 months later figures have emerged which reveal that some 38,000 or so AR properties came online in 2012/13, the year before the bedroom tax, and gave social landlords an additional yearly rental income of about £93m. A week or so ago the DWP report into the bedroom tax was published and my immediate comments on that were social landlords arrears had increased by £140m in 2013/14 – the first year of the bedroom tax. There are no confirmed figures yet for how many AR units came online in 2013/14 with social landlords but even if we assume zero we see that social landlords have had two year (2012/23 and 2013/14) of circa £93m per year additional income, that is £186m in additional income to set against the £140m reduced income from bedroom tax arrears! Read more on the Speye blog.