The Elephant in the Bedroom

Finally, the Upper Tribunal decision on room size and the bedroom tax has been released.  And the upshot? Well, frankly a bit of a mess. The appeals were by the DWP of two FTT decisions that rooms of 64 square feet and 66.3 square feet were too small to be classed as bedrooms. As the UT put it, both the FTT decisions found that:

i) under occupancy can be seen as the flip side of overcrowding

ii) to be a bedroom a room should be large enough to be appropriate for use as a bedroom by an adult - or by two children, and

iii) had Parliament intended that these long-standing statutory minimum standards should be disregarded by the Tribunal, the FTT would have expected that to have been clearly stated in the legislation.

Read more on Nearly Legal.

Landmark Bedroom Tax Ruling Issued

A tribunal has overturned a decision on the bedroom tax, setting a precedent that could force some councils to rethink how they decide who needs a room for an overnight carer. The ruling, the first by an upper tribunal to set a precedent, overturned a first-tier tribunal decision that had upheld a housing benefit cut by Eastleigh Borough Council. The Hampshire local authority reduced the benefit of a woman who lives in a three-bedroom house with her daughter and was therefore deemed to have a spare room. The woman contended that she required a room for an overnight carer because she suffered from severe asthma and eczema, and produced a doctor’s letter saying the ‘unpredictability’ of her asthma means ‘she may well need and often does have someone staying overnight to look after her’. Read more on the Nearly Legal website.

Bedroom Tax FTT Decisions

Nearly Legal is keeping a list of decisions by the First Tier Tribunal on bedroom tax appeals. Where possible, there will be links to written decisions, if not, then to whatever news or other report is available.  [See also the pre-1996 continuous claims exemption]. These are in chronological order, with the area identified. See more on the Nearly Legal website.

Bedroom Tax: The Effect of the Pre-1996 Claim ‘Exemption’.

The DWP has confirmed that 4(1)(a) of Schedule 3 of the Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Consequential Provisions) Regulations 2006 has the effect that any HB claimant who has been claiming continuously since before 1 January 1996, for the same property, should have their HB rate calculated without the ‘Spare room subsidy’ provisions. In effect these claimants are exempt from the bedroom tax under the current regulations and have been since their introduction in April 2013. So, for the full list of who is exempt, read more on the Nearly Legal website.

Bedroom Tax Tribunal Victory 'Likely To Be Followed'

Tenants who claim spare rooms have never been used as bedrooms could escape the bedroom tax following a tribunal decision, a top law firm have said. Blind lawyer, Surinder Lall, won a tribunal decision against Westminster Council this week, after claiming the room was used for storage of medical equipment not as a bedroom. Judge Haley-Halinski ruled in his favour last week saying: ‘I have found the room in question was never intended to be a bedroom and has never been used as a bedroom.’  While it does not set a binding legal precedent, Winckworth Sherwood have warned it is likely to be followed by judges in further cases. Read more on the Nearly Legal website.

Of Bedrooms That Aren’t

A First Tier Tribunal decision on a bedroom tax appeal has overturned the landlord’s assertions on bedroom numbers.  The decision accepts that it is reasonable for the benefit authority to rely on the landlord’s description of the property. But, significantly, the landlord’s description is not determinative. The FTT is quite happy to determine whether a ‘bedroom’ as described by the landlord actually is a bedroom, and to replace the landlord’s description of the property with its own. In this instance, from 3 bedrooms to one.  While this is only an FTT decision, and not binding at all, the approach does raise the interesting prospect of, for example, those with adapted properties where a bedroom has been physically changed in purpose, or those with small box rooms, making successful appeals which overturn the landlord’s own designation of bedrooms.  Read more on the Nearly Legal blog.

Evicting Rioters: A Brief Note

As a number of Councils and Housing Associations say that they intend to evict tenants involved in rioting we’ll take a quick look at the relevant grounds of Housing Acts 1985 and 1988 and consider the ramifications. The relevant grounds for an eviction would be Ground 2 of Schedule 2 of Housing Act 1985 (for secure, Council tenants) or Ground 14 Schedule 2 Housing Act 1988 (for assured, housing association tenants). These are pretty much identical, both read:
The tenant or a person residing in or visiting the dwelling-house—
(a) has been guilty of conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to a person residing, visiting or otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the locality, or
(b) has been convicted of—
(i) using the dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes, or
(ii) an indictable offence committed in, or in the locality of, the dwelling-house.
Both are discretionary grounds, which mean that the Court must also be satisfied that it is reasonable in the circumstances to make a possession order and that the court has a further discretion to impose a postponed or suspended possession order with conditions. There can be little doubt that rioting and/or looting would be likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance. There are likely to be large numbers of convictions for indictable offences as well. However, the nuisance or the offence must be in ‘the locality’ of the tenanted property. ‘Locality’ is not defined in either Act or elsewhere. There may well be some difficult cases on what constitutes a locality to come, where the offence/nuisance is not within the immediate neighbourhood of the property. But certainly an offence committed in another borough is highly unlikely to count. Grant Shapps has suggested that the ‘locality’ condition should be scrapped so that those found guilty of ‘being involved in rioting’ in another area could be evicted. The trouble with that is it would simply mean being convicted of an arrestable offence, even if wholly unrelated to the home or to housing, would be a ground for eviction. Read the full article on the nearlylegal website.